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EXPANSION 

For the Sake of 

God, Love and Civilization. 

BY 

MORRISON I. SWIFT. 

PRICE TEN CENTS 


THE RONBROKE PRESS 

EOS ANGEEBS, CAE. 

1900 


CONTENTS. 


I. Imperialism to Bless the Conquered. 

II. Imperialism for the Sake of Mankind. 

1. Anglo-Saxon Claims. 

2. English Protests Against Imperialism. 

3. British Imperial Bathos. 

4. Only Cash-Paying Philanthropy Wanted. 

5. Is India Happy ? 

6. British Humanity in the Soudan. 

III. Our Crime in the Philippine Islands. 

1. The New Policy of Corruption. 

2. McKinley’s Proclamation of War. 

3. All Our Rights Forfeited. 

4. Could Spain Sell Us Sovereignty ? 

5. Our Great Debt to the Filipinos. 

6. Superlative Tredchery. 

7. The American Lie of Love. 

8. Fooling All The People. 

9. The Honorable Solution of the Problem. 


CHAPTER I. 


Imperialism To Bless the Conquered. 


The demand for absorbing the Philippines is so gross 
a departure from American principles, a revolution of 
our national purposes so singular and complete, that 
it is well to probe down to its real cause. Three 
motives are offered to sanction the change : Blessing 
for the peoples absorbed, Dutjr to the World, and 
Markets. It can be shown that the first two are but 
forms of the third—avarice for markets. The commer¬ 
cial market-seekers are adroitly using philanthropic 
sentiments to win the philanthropic over to their side 
in order to secure new fields to exploit. 

Tet us realize the reach of this. It is the culmin¬ 
ating stroke of Plutocracy. Even so late as a few 
years ago it could not have been safely proposed. But 
Plutocracy is master now, and makes no pause. Im¬ 
perialism cancels the Constitution and takes the life 
of popular government: the very ends that plutocracy 
aims at. The fact of plutocracy has worked enfeeble- 
ment in the general mind. Expansion will create the 
formerly dreaded standing army: Plutocracy fore¬ 
sees and desires it; universal monopoly will need an 
army against the people. Would this army have been 
voted five years ago ? 

Let us consider the three grounds for expansion. 
Blessing to the peoples annexed. The leading feature 
of the blessing will be our capitalists. Do capital¬ 
ists go out to bless ? We have had some opportunities 


l 



2 TO BLESS THE CONQUERED. 

to lift the lowly. Here are our southern blacks. Our 
blessing there takes the form of denials of the ballot 
and of ballot-box massacres. What degree of friendly 
assimilation have we achieved ? Is there not ground to 
fear a general race war one of these days ? Whites of 
opposite political creeds are obliged to bury their di¬ 
vergences and vote together to prevent negro domin¬ 
ation. Current events in the South indicate that there 
is to be no compromise: 

“The North Carolina Democrats are trying to find a 
way to constitutionally disfranchise the negro. A new 
election law will be passed next year, and the Demo¬ 
crats of the State are endeavoring to frame a constitu¬ 
tional amendment restricting the suffrage as the result 
of the race strife at the last election. These Democrats 
are studying the bill for the annexation of the Hawa¬ 
iian islands. That bill does not grant universal suf¬ 
frage. By imposing property qualifications, it prac¬ 
tically disfranchises the natives, and places the 
government in the hands of the whites and a few 
others. The North Carolina Democrats say if Congress 
can constitutionally adopt this legislation in independ¬ 
ent States, they can do the same.” 

This state of things does not suggest that we are 
gifted to raise inferior peoples. It would be a delicate 
question to ask if we shall prepare the Cubans and 
Filipinos for self-government—the high purpose of 
which our statesmen are ever speaking—by ballot 
restrictions denying them a vote. But why not? We 
do it with ‘ ‘ childish ’ ’ races ^nearer home. And if we 
refuse them the practice of self-government how many 
centuries will it take them to learn it ? 

Our Indians, too, are a second lesson. Our rule of 
them has bloomed in robbery and progressive extermin¬ 
ation, and behind the swindling officials have stood 
the moral and military forces of the nation. We may 
say that it is good for the world that the breath of civ¬ 
ilization exterminates such races—some assert this— 
but it shakes the argument of philanthropy. Is it good 
for them to be exterminated ? Does blessing them mean 
exterminating them ? Is this what we mean by saying 


TO btess the; conqurre;d. 


3 


that we shall lift them up and confer free institutions 
upon them ? Why not be clear on this point before 
we go out to reclaim the Filipinos ? We should then 
prove to them, in the altered words of William McKin¬ 
ley, ‘ that the mission of the United States is one ot 
benevolent extermination, substituting the mild sway 
of civilizing extinction for arbitrary rule. ’ They have 
a very searching right to know what form our blessing 
is to take, one would think, and to decide whether 
they care to be blessed in our way. 

There is another side—the effect of extermination 
upon the exterminator. It may be well meant, but is 
the consciousness of dealing civilizingly with lower 
human beings in order to obliterate them without crime 
morally healthy ? Surely not. Slave owners were de¬ 
graded by their relation to the slave; it made them 
brutal in character and domineering in other relations 
of life. Any form or degree of domination has a like 
tendency. It fosters the degrading sense of superi¬ 
ority, contempt, arrogance, aloofness, the domineering 
spirit, all of which canker the superior man’s nature. 
It prevents the growth of brotherliness—the highest 
idea of civilization; of equality—the basis of demo¬ 
cratic evolution; of the American spirit—the essence of 
the American spirit being equal opportunity of develop¬ 
ment for all. 

The influence of an alien race upon the growth of 
American liberty and the success of our weighty trial 
in popular government is therefore grave. We ought 
to see from experience that we have no fitness for gov¬ 
erning, assimilating, or uplifting ‘derelict’ races, and 
that contact with them in the alleged attempt to do so 
depraves us. 

Hawaii carries the demonstration another step. 
Have we consulted the will of the native, the real 
Hawaiian? No. We have listened to the voice of 
American capitalists who grasped the Hawaiian govern¬ 
ment and insolently claimed to represent the popula¬ 
tion of the islands. The will and well-being of the 
native have influenced our decisions no more than the 
will of the beasts roaming the Hawaiian jungles. 


4 


TO BIvKSS THE CONQUERED. 


With this record our solemn concern for the good of 
the native Filipinos is hollow and fraudulent. There 
will be grandiloquent vaporings from the pulpit, press 
and platform, from Congress and President,—already 
their pious sound has encircled the globe—but the 
shaping force below rhetoric and piety will be financial 
desire. Nothing will have any real weight but that. 

This argument of our duty to lower races has been 
cunningly handled by those whose motive is commer¬ 
cial gain. They first appeal to the conscience of the 
nation, but when conscience and humane instincts 
have been roused and the people have adopted their 
counsels for the good of humanity, another side of the 
case is brought out to congeal the public conscience 
again and restore apathy, whereupon the commercial 
class can go ahead and do what they please. They 
have gained their point, the laws they wanted have 
been passed, and the people forget to repeal them when 
the commercialists correct themselves and announce 
that humanity in that instance would be wasted. To 
make the case concrete apply it to Cuba or the Philip¬ 
pines. The first act dwells with ostentation upon the 
inhumanity of leaving a meritorious race in galling 
servitude: a passion of sympathy is stirred and the 
oppressed are freed; the second act discovers and bruits 
abroad the degradation of the liberated people, the 
public retires into the shell of its disappointed virtue, 
turning over the worthless savages to the wise men of 
commerce to discipline and use according to their 
deserts. The farce is now finished. A protectorate is 
established, or annexation, and the unworthy race is 
taken in tutelage tor a nameless period. To nervous 
objections the reply is that it is improper to consider 
the preferences of semi-savages. 

This pious buncoing is proceeding for the confisca¬ 
tion of Porto Rico, the Philippines, and possibly Cuba 
—for Hawaii the work is already done. The moral 
and religious ‘ gag ’ of elevating the natives is being 
worked in the usual way to obtain the vote of the 
churches. When we have absorbed or established our 
guardianship of the islands, the inciting commercial 


TO BLESS THE CONQUERED. 


5 


class will lay religion and humanity aside and resume 
its native shape of proprietor, speculator and capitalist. 
The critical question is whether this will be opposed 
by the moral and religious uplifters. If the aims of the 
moral and religious were intelligent and serious, were 
they people of character and force, the commercial ex¬ 
ploiters would be sternly faced and held to their prom¬ 
ises : but this will not happen. Adjustment will hap¬ 
pen. The rapacious commercialists will pronounce the 
doctrine of total savage depravity, the lifters-up will 
appreciate that this is reasonable and will gracefully go 
about saving the souls of the natives whose bodies the 
capitalists will break. 

The principles proceeded upon by the capitalists will 
be those always applied to inferior labor by employers 
—long hours, petty remuneration, and no consideration 
of their well-being. What is left of the natives after 
this will be turned over to the missionaries to be pre¬ 
pared for death. And the religious party will accept 
these fag ends of humanity and recite their formulas of 
doing good, soul-saving and lifting up, showing that 
the destroyers and the saviors understood each other 
from the beginning of the annexation drama. The 
Hawaiian planters have protested that our government 
must not prevent the importation of alien labor there 
because their prosperity depends upon an inflow of 
cheap coolies. What about the well-being of our 
American citizens, the Hawaiian natives, who must 
compete with these coolie importations? Will they 
develop into the kind of men that we like to imagine 
our citizens are ? And was not one of the strong pub¬ 
lic motives for Hawaiian annexation—before the war 
motive dispensed with subterfuge—our concern for the 
good of the natives ? Consider then the prospects of 
the Philippine natives if our commercial exploiters ex¬ 
haust them so rapidly as to require a new stream of 
coolie Chinese! 

Laying aside cant, let us admit that our commercial 
classes are magnificently indifferent to the well-being 
of any natives, and will resent and thwart the first move 
to hinder them from consuming the natives as ‘ labor ’ 


6 


TO BEESS THE CONQUERED. 


and reducing their strength and life to ‘profits.’ The 
position of the moral and religious would be mord- 
antly humiliating if they were serious and honest about 
saving the natives. 

Events relating to the Philippines have already trans¬ 
pired to establish these facts. The National Christian 
Citizenship Convention that was called to meet in 
Washington, D. C., last December, issued the follow¬ 
ing remarkable subjects for the convention’s work: 

‘ ‘ Should suffrage be limited by educational tests or 
otherwise in the new island territories ? 

Should civil-service reform be extended to the new 
island offices? 

Should the national laws forbidding prize-fights and 
bull-fights, restricting divorce, and forbidding bigamy 
and related evils, be extended to our new island 
territories ? 

Should the American civil Sabbath be also extended 
to these islands ? 

Should the canteen be abolished ? 

Should the policy of prohibition be maintained in 
Alaska and the Indian Territory and extended to our 
new island territories ?” 

Could anything be more delicately ludicrous than 
this program for reaching the great industrial evil, 
which we shall legally foster and protect in every island 
that we grab ! We shall set up a system for legally 
robbing the natives of all their valuable possessions ; 
capitalists will secure every fertile spot and hire the 
work done by native gangs at just savage subsistence 
wages; they will plant factories and use the cheap labor 
to undersell white labor in our own country and other 
parts of the world. But this outlook does not affront 
our Christian Citizens, for they are accustomed to see 
white men in their own country dealt with on the same 
principles, and to recognize it as a wise ordination of 
providence. What troubles them is whether these sav¬ 
ages will keep the Sabbath, whether they can be cut 
off from the few brutal pleasures accessible to their 
kind—prize-fights, bull-fights, etc.,—whether to pro¬ 
hibit them from drinking (it would make them more 


TO BtESS THE) CONQUERED. 


7 


serviceable workmen and ought to be done), and 
whether the pagans can be restrained by our purifying 
law from the sin of wives and free divorces. Excellent 
fun indeed ! Heroic work to do while the American 
people through their army and navy are assisting the 
capitalists to change the natives into that broken-down, 
wrung-out, off-scouring of civilization, the wage¬ 
worker. But while we are enforcing our sexual 
hypocrisy upon them will not our Christian Citizens 
prepare a convention against the palaces of prostitution 
that will enter with the white man’s civilization, and 
forestall them by forbidding prostitution in the Phil¬ 
ippines by law ? 

How much weight, then, should the plea of annex¬ 
ing savages to bless them have ? Simply none. The 
altruists who are praying for a new chance to do good 
are deferential supplicators of capitalists for funds to 
paint over the deep wounds which capitalism will in¬ 
flict. In timorous hope of contributions they have to 
creep before these great men with anxious circum¬ 
spection. They can champion no reform that is odious 
to the lords of the purse. They may amuse themselves 
debating questions of the canteen, piohibition, bull¬ 
fights; divorce, educational and property tests of citi¬ 
zenship that would disfranchise the natives and give 
the capitalists legislative control, and even civil service 
reform to which only the professional politician could 
demur, but they will religiously let the great abuses 
alone: they will never utter a sound against the capit¬ 
alist methods of employment, the irresistible processes 
of capitalism that sponge up wealth into a central hoard 
and debauch the population to a servile dependence 
equal to slavery. The religious gentlemen who should 
speak of these outrages would lose their nice comfort. 
For comfort’s sake they hold their peace. But the 
division of spoils is suitable. The capitalists take the 
loaf and give the religionists the crumbs. There is a 
much meaning lesson here : even the forces of tyrannical 
selfishness are leagued against religious sycophants. 
Canting religion has grown too weak to longer exact 
payment. 


8 


1*0 BtKSS TOT C0NQUEJRE5D. 


But let others realize the fraud. Let them beware 
of making themselves the equally degraded instruments 
of capitalist usage and contempt. Let them close their 
ears to the cry for expansion which these pious persons 
are so starvingly paid to raise. 


CHAPTER II. 


Imperialism for the Sake of Mankind 


1. Anglo-Saxon Claims. 

The plea of duty to the world involves a wider out¬ 
look. We are solicited to extend our proprietorship 
and rule in order to disseminate our free institutions 
over the earth. Wherever our liberal institutions go 
they are presumed to convey enlightenment and ele¬ 
vation. We are told that it is a critical moment for 
mankind, that England has for some generations been 
bucking against the entire world alone, that her strength 
is failing, and that destiny calls us to the rescue. She 
has nobly carried the Anglo-Saxon habits of freedom 
to darkened peoples, and now, her generous task in¬ 
complete, she falters under the strain, her envious 
rivals block the path and nibble ferociously at the fair 
slices of the world she has already benignly carved out. 
The great prize at stake for mankind is Anglo-Saxon 
lordship of the globe. Anglo-Saxonism is set forth 
to be a higher form of civilization than any other race 
can bring to the conquered continents, and it is plaint¬ 
ively alleged that England’s struggle is ours and that 
the spread of Anglo-Saxonism, its lofty realities and 
loftier ideals, is the sacred affair of every English 
speaking man. They reproach us with standing idly 
apart from the great world’s affairs too long, shirking 
our magnanimous responsibilities in the stupendous 
drama of international evolution, and Senator Lodge 
sadly discerns the “ humiliation of the United States 
in the eyes of civilized mankind ” if we do not pluck 




IO 


protests against imperialism, 


the ripe fruit of imperialism, and the stain upon us of 
being “incapable of great affairs or of taking rank 
where we belong as one of the greatest of the great 
world powers.” With all this pathos the trade-be¬ 
dizened prize of China is mixed up. Let her not be¬ 
come Russianized, they implore, to annihilate Anglo- 



Saxon prestige. These are evidently high matters 
needing subtle study. 

2. English Protests Against Imperialism. 

In moments and destinies so critical nothing must be 
taken for granted. What is this princely gift that 
England is seeking to bestow upon humanity? Why 
is it so necessary for Anglo-Saxons to rule mankind ? 
Much depends on the answer to this. The answer 
given by English statesmen is certainly dim, doubting 
and obscure. In fact we shall be greatly surprised by 
the persistance with which the good and self-interest 
of the Anglo-Saxons enters into the disinterested creed 
of universal good to mankind. But in England there 
is far from that contented and assured agreement that 
we should expect in an unselfish nation devoted to the 
great policy of ameliorating mankind. The Liberal 
party is on the verge of wreck over this beautiful ideal 
of an Anglo-Saxon world. 

On the 15th of December a great conference of Lib¬ 
erals was held at Birmingham to face the crisis occa¬ 
sioned by Harcourt’s resignation. In the evening Mr. 
Asquith made what the Liberal press called a ‘ ‘ great 
speech” in the course of which he said: 

“Gentlemen, we are not Jingoes, we repudiate that 
pinchbeck imperialism which regards the whole world 
as its legitimate provinces, and which flaunts its flag 
and challenge in the face of every power in turn. 
We base the title of Great Britain in India, in Egypt, 
and wherever we are exercising our supremacy, over 
the populations of any country or race, not upon brute 
force, not upon the authority of disciplined strength 
over the scattered resources of the untrained intelli¬ 
gence of the undeveloped races. (Hear, hear.) We 


PROTESTS AGAINST IMPERIALISM. II 

base it upon the work which we do, upon the benefits 
which we confer, and, above all, upon that which is, 
or ought to be, the predominant purpose of our policy, 
upon the slow, but in course of time the effective asso¬ 
ciation with those to whom we came in the character of 
strangers and conquerers—the task of helping them 
work out for themselves a higher and a better political 
and social ideal. (Hear, hear.)” 

If Mr. Asquith does not know there are many 
in England who do know that there is a wide distance 
between “that which is," and ‘ ‘ that which ought to be, 
the predominant purpose” of English policy. But on 
the whole this sounds noble and good and is very dif¬ 
ferent from the imperialism which is at present in the 
saddle in England. Moderate as it is, what was the 
general sentiment of the conference as compared with 
it? That sentiment will possibly stagger the benevo¬ 
lent people whose clarion voice is now calling us to 
( England’s rescue. 

At the afternoon session the Rev. Mr. Jowett—note 
the ‘‘Reverend ” and “ a man of great note in Birming¬ 
ham”—‘attacked ‘‘Imperialism” in all moods and 
tenses, in a strong speech.’ 

‘ He said an infection was in the air which seemed 
to have tainted the historic party which had hitherto 
been the party of peace. It was a tendency which was 
one of the most perilous of modern days. That word 
imperialism had become so tainted with suspicion that 
he was not sure that any self-respecting statesman 
would aspire to be thought in favor of it. (Cheers.) 
Imperialism was only a synonym for jingoism—(cheers) 
—against which they fought and conquered twenty 
years ago. (Cheers.) He announced the daringly 
logical conclusion that England was at present playing 
the part of Stiggins in Europe, ‘ ‘ seizing slices of the 
globe” and glozing it over with ‘‘religious postur¬ 
ings.” ’ * 

Sir Wilfrid Eawson said, the only people who liked 
war were statesmen, music-hall singers, aldermen, 


♦London Daily Chronicle report, Dec. 17, 1898. 



12 protests against imperialism. 

bishops, and newspaper editors. (Laughter and 
cheers.) 

Mr. Hirst Hollowell declared that ‘ it was not a battle 
of persons or private jealousies that was going on inside 
the Liberal party, but of principles. The party was 
not going to be led into jingoism by anybody, and if 
its leaders or those of any other party were to be dis¬ 
paraged or shunted because they stood up against 
jingoism, then the members of the party throughout 
the country would have something to say on the mat¬ 
ter. (Loud cheers.) . . . There were two things with 
which the Liberal party would never make any terms, 
and these were sectarianism in education and jingoism 
in foreign politics. (Cheers.)’ 

‘ ‘ The net result of the whole was summed tip by the 
observers as a demonstration of unexpected strength 
against the Liberal Imperialists. ’ ’ * 

It seems then that many Englishmen have not the 
slightest toleration for the talisman by which we are 
being conjured to expansion—that Anglo-Saxon Im¬ 
perialism is a blessing to the world. 

But no British statesman can speak on this subject 
with the weight of John Morley because of his known 
probity, and Mr. Morley has broken with the new 
Liberalism because of its “ imperialistic jingo policy” 
which he thus defines : 

“ First, that territory is territory, and all territory is 
worth acquiring. 

‘‘Second, that all territory, especially if anybody 
happens to want it, is worth paying any price for. 

“ Third, that the country possesses the purse of 
Fortunatus, and is free to fling tnillions here and mil¬ 
lions there, with the certainty that benignant fairies 
will, by magic, make them good. 

“ Fourth, do not show the slightest regard for the 
opinions of other nations. You have no share what¬ 
ever in the great collective responsibility of civilized 
peoples as the winged guardians of peace and good or¬ 
der in the state system of Europe. 


^London Daily Chronicle report, Dec. 17,1898. 



BRITISH IMPERIAL, BATHOS. 


13 


“ Fifth, the interests of the people of this country, 
and advancement in all the arts of civilized life and 
well-being, are completely and utterly secondary and 
subordinate questions.” * 

Mr. Labouchere had already spoken in notable lan¬ 
guage on some of these points before the Manchester 
Reform Club. He had said : ‘ ‘ The great illusion of the 
present day was to suppose that an increase of territory 
meant an increase of trade. As a matter of fact, as 
could easily be proved by figures, it did not mean any 
such thing. All the annexations we had made of late 
were a commercial fallacy, and even the doctrine of the 
open door had been much exaggerated. The mania at 
the present time was to spend money in any place ex¬ 
cepting England. Instead of spending money in irri¬ 
gation works in Bahr-el-Ghazal he, as a Londoner, 
maintained that they ought to spend it rather in pro¬ 
viding a good water supply for the inhabitants of the 
metropolis. When he saw the proposal for the estab¬ 
lishment of a school at Khartoum to teach little Arab 
boys English he could not help thinking what a won¬ 
derful people his countrymen were to spend money on 
such an object as that instead of supplying food and 
clothing and education to the thousands of poor little 
English boys at home.” j* 

3. British Imperial Bathos. 

These unequivocal protests give the noble mission of 
England a very different hue. Bathos dances behind 
all the magnificently generous phrases. We find it in 
Lord Rosebery’s eulogy of the awful Sirdar of the Sou¬ 
dan. “ Our task,” said the Lord, “ is the task of our 
empire all over the world, not merely to erect a stand¬ 
ard of civil government for those who have not hitherto 
had that standard, but to enable the people gradually, at 
a long distance perhaps, but in time at a7iy rate , to take 
some part in their own administration, and to have a 


♦Speech at Montrose, Jan. 1899. See Loudon correspondence of New 
York Post, Jan. 25. 
fLcndon Chronicle, Dec. 14, 1898. 



T 4 


BRITISH IMPERIAL BATHOS. 


distinctive share in the moulding of their own future. ’ ’ 
(Cheers.) “Gradually,” “ at a long distance,” “some 
part,” “ a distinctive share,” these are not aims that 
make it worth while for the freedom loving American 
people to sustain England’s conquering arm. 

The difficulty these Imperialist politicians have in 
making selfishness seem noble makes one pinch one¬ 
self to be sure that they are not on a stage acting for 
the amusement of mankind. Mr. G. W. Balfour, M. 
P., Chief Secretary for Ireland, a representative Con¬ 
servative, wrestling to hide the secrets, gave them away 
bravely. “ Was the Imperial spirit a spirit to be en¬ 
couraged, or a spirit to be repressed? In a general 
way, within reasonable limits and within the limits of 
our strength, he thought the policy of what Eord Rose¬ 
bery described as pegging out claims to posterity was 
a wise and sound one. Had we moral justification for 
pursuing this policy ? If these dependencies were not un¬ 
der the control of this country , they would , for the most 
part , undoubtedly fall under the control of so?ne other 
country , and we had at least this to say at the bar of 
the world’s judgment, that wherever we occupied a 
territory that territory was opened to the enterprise and 
the trade of all the world. (Cheers.) No doubt we 
sought our own advantage , but the peculiarity was that 
our advantage did not exclude the advantage of other 
people. The second justification which we could plead 
for this policy was that it was in our power to show 
that the countries over which our rule had extended 
had gained by means of that rule the blessings of order , 
of good government, and of a higher civilization than that 
which they previously knew." (Cheers.)* 

If we don’t steal every country that is not already 
stolen some other Power will steal it—our stealing is 
therefore righteous. Disraeli established this for us by 
stealing Cyprus. We seek our own advantage, but we 
find it to our greater advantage to share our trade ad¬ 
vantages with others—therefore we are unselfish. And 
surely you can’t say that we don’t bless and civilize 


♦Speech at Keighley, Dec. 20,189S. 



BRITISH IMPERIAL BATHOS. 


15 


and keep a splendid police system over the conquered 
and govern them in a more orderly manner than they 
governed themselves—therefore if we take their coun¬ 
try away from them and rob them of independence it is 
justified. Yes, but this is unmitigated bathos and rot, 
and Englishmen who are not muzzled know it and say 
so. The Saturday Review says this flatly in referring 
to a paper by Dr. Bonar on the Empire, read before the 
British Association : 

“ Dr. Bonar, at any rate, has a quaint notion of the 
altruistic mission of the Empire. Wealth does not 
always give power, as he truly says. But he asks us 
to believe that we hold Egypt, and even India, ‘ not 
from avarice, but from love of governing.’ ‘ Our own 
colonies,’ he adds, ‘ are not bound to us by a nexus of 
cash payments.’ Does Dr. Bonar really imagine that 
we hold India and Egypt primarily because we think 
that we can govern them better than any one else can ? 
The plain unvarnished truth is that the Empire was 
built up as the result of the pursuit of gain, and if we do 
not attempt to exact immediate cash payments or their 
equivalent from the Colonies today, we abstain because 
rude experience warns us of the certain consequences.”* 

The canting utterances of Lord Salisbury confirm this. 
Said he:f ‘ ‘The Empire is advancing and must advance. 
(Hear, hear.) The great strength you have must be 
used unfailingly, unsparingly, but still prudently, for 
the advancement of the interest of the Empire, and for 
the benefit of mankind. (Cheers.) And happy will 
be the Minister in future days who will be able to ren¬ 
der you as good an account as I think we can render 
you today—(loud and prolonged cheers)—that we have 
used the force that is entrusted to us not violently, not 
sentimentally, but with calm and courageous calcula¬ 
tion for the advancement of the interests of the Empire 
and the benefits of the civilization of mankind. (Eoud 
cheers.) ” 

The words of Mr. Chamberlain confirm this. 
Taunted by Mr. Asquith with ‘ inconsistency in having 


*Sept. 17,189S. 

fSpeaking at a dinner of the Constitutional Club, London, Dec. 16,1898. 



1 6 BRITISH IMPKRIAT BATHOS. 

at one moment boasted of Britain’s glorious isolation 
and at another advocated an alliance, he replied that 
England is “ gloriously isolated ” in her ability to de¬ 
fend her own exclusive interests ; but she needs an ally 
when she is called upon to assist in the promotion of the 
interests of others' * 

The speech of the new Eord Curzon at the luncheon 
given in his honor by the directors of the Peninsular 
and Oriental Steamship Company on the eve of his de¬ 
parture to rule India confirms it.f The occasion was 
significant, he was speaking to great commercial men- 

‘ Among the chief advantages of the imperial con. 
nection between England and India he included the 
possibility of the improved development of India. 
[The usual flourish of duty and disinterestedness.] . . . 
The chairman had incidentally referred to India in the 
interests of business men as a field for commercial en¬ 
terprise. [Transition to the motive of avarice begins.] 
He could not help thinking, although desirous to avoid 
prophecy, that there would be great developments in 
that respect. (Hear, hear.) [Warm commercial 
response.] ... If we could establish in India anything 
like stability of exchange—a great problem to which 
any outgoing Viceroy must turn his attention—he be¬ 
lieved that confidence would revive, and that British 
capital would flow more freely to India. It might per¬ 
haps be regarded as a counsel of perfection to look at 
the case from any other point of view than that of ex¬ 
pediency and self-interest, but in all matters connected 
with India he believed the point of view of duty and of 
obligation was paramount. (Hear, hear.) [Another 
blast on the trumpet of pharisaism with fine commer¬ 
cial appreciation.] . . . But here, as business men, they 
might pardon and sympathize with him if he looked at 
the matter also from the sordid point of view of the £ s. d. 
[Now preliminaries are over and Curzon gets down to 
business.] I v et them look at the trade of India, and 
compare it with the trade of our colonies. He found 
that the total sea-borne trade of India for 1896-7, which 


♦Saturday Review, Dec. io, 1898. 
fSee the Dondon Chronicle, Dec. 3, 1898. 



BRITISH IMPERIAL BATHOS. 


17 


was an unprosperous year, almost equalled that of the 
whole of our Australian colonies, and was much greater 
than that of our South African and North American 
colonies combined ; indeed, it constituted nearly one- 
tenth of the trade of the whole British Empire, and was 
more than one-third of the trade of the whole Empire 
outside of the United Kingdom. (Hear, hear.) These 
were astounding figures, and if any deduction was to 
be drawn from them, it was certainly not the conclus¬ 
ion that, even regarded from the point of view of self- 
interest, India was a matter in which we had little or 
no concern. On the contrary, India was of vital inter¬ 
est. (Cheers.)’ [The commercial skeleton of En¬ 
gland’s civilizing philanthropy is at length completely 
bared.] 

The determination of England to monopolize educa¬ 
tion in Africa confirms it. Conveying to Kitchener 
the approval of “ Her Majesty’s Government” of the 
Khartoum College project Lord Salisbury said : ‘ ‘ The 

reconciliation of the races which inhabit the Nile Val¬ 
ley to a government which, in its principles and its 
methods, must be essentially Western, is a task of the 
extremest difficulty. It will tax the resources of the 
present generation, and of those who come after them, 
for many years before the wall of prejudice can be 
thrown down which separates the thoughts of the 
European and the thoughts of the Egyptian and the 
Soudanese races, and until it is to a considerable ex¬ 
tent accomplished we cannot count securely upon their 
co-operation, either in the duties of government or in 
the promotion of industrial progress. The only method 
by which this reconciliation can be attained is to give 
to the races whom you have conquered access to the 
literature and knowledge of Europe. 

“Your scheme, therefore, for establishing a machin¬ 
ery by which European knowledge can be brought to 
the inhabitants of the Valley of the Nile is not only in 
itself most admirable, but it represents the only policy 
by which the civilizing mission of this country can 
effectively be accomplished.” 


1 8 BRITISH IMPERIAL BATHOS. 

The general attitude of the nation is mirrored in the 
following editorial opinion : 

‘ ‘ For this College at Khartoum would be a new de¬ 
parture in Africa. There we have lavished millions in 
attempts to teach Christianity, with and without ma¬ 
terial improvements in the condition of the people. In 
spite of widely circulated annual reports, the political 
observer can see no great results—none at any rate 
commensurate with the outlay. And here would be a 
new line, the only line possible, as the Prime Minister, 
whose Christianity no one will suspect, has very prop¬ 
erly said, by which the civilizing mission of Great Brit¬ 
ain can be thoroughly accomplished in the Nile basin.” 

All this seems very innocent and disinterested. But 
about this time France began to talk of assisting in the 
arduous task of ‘ reconciling ’ African with European 
civilization by founding two colleges in the Nile Val¬ 
ley, one at Khartoum and one at Fashoda. M. Deloncle 
in a letter to the “ Temps” said : “Will you be so 
kind as to inform your readers that, anxious not to be 
left behind in this work of education, a French group 
has in its turn taken the initiative for the foundation of 
two establishments for native education and instruc¬ 
tion—in the first place, ‘ The French School ’ at Khar¬ 
toum, and, later on, ‘ The Marchand School ’ at Fash¬ 
oda. The greater part of the funds required for this 
double project is already assured by generous 
donations.” 

We may presume that England thankfully welcomed 
this offer to share the burden of civilizing the Soudan¬ 
ese races, atask in Salisbury’s words of “extremest 
difficulty,” but she did nothing of the sort. English 
papers scorned the offer and called it an “amusing 
project.” Why amusing? If England’s purpose is 
the good of the Nile people why will she not co-oper¬ 
ate gladly with a highly civilized nation like France to 
educate them ? Educators and scientists of all nations 
of the earth are loyally co-operating to advance science 
and education irrespective of race and political rivalry. 
But we can understand very well why England will 
not co-operate or share if her ‘ civilization ’ is domin- 



BRITISH IMPERIAL BATHOS. 


19 


ation and supremacy in the Nile region for commercial 
| ends, and the fact that she will not brook assistance in 
educating and civilizing establishes our contention that 
her ruling purpose is not civilization at all but com¬ 
mercialism, that she would not be held in Africa or 
India a day by the good she can do there, and that 
' what holds her is the gain she gets or expects to get. 

The New York Tribune, referring to Lord Cromer’s 
announcement to the Soudanese of the civilization that 
is ahead of them, expressed a great thought very 
suavely. “ Of course,” it remarked, “ it may be ob¬ 
jected that this action of the British is criminal aggres¬ 
sion, rank imperialism, et cetera, and that it is a 
shameful thing to set up a government at Omdurman 
without a favorable plebiscitum in Dem Bekir. But 
we doubt whether such considerations will undo or de¬ 
feat the convention which has been made, or will turn 
back the rising tide of civilization in the Dark Con¬ 
tinent.” The rising of European commercial rule and 
the falling tide of African independence, would be true. 
Call ‘‘criminal aggression ” by the name of “ civiliza- 
V tion ” and its sins are all forgiven; it is redeemed, 
purified and ready to enter heaven. 

The curious reader will find in the British and Foreign 
State Papers for the year 1854-5, * the following 
words : ‘ In 1854 a grand jury in the Williamsburg 

district [South Carolina] declared,’ “ as our unanimous 
opinion, that the Federal law abolishing the African 
Slave Trade is a public grievance. We hold this trade 
has been and would be, if re-established, a blessing to 
the American people, and a benefit to the African him¬ 
self ” 

The idea that slavery was a benefit to the African 
himself was made a corner stone of the institution of 
slavery. It brought inward consolation to the good 
man who held slaves or upheld slavery. Now, the 
enslaving of lower nations is good for the nation that 
enslaves and a benefit to the nation that is enslaved. 


♦Page 1156, quoted by W. E. B. Du Bois : “ The Suppression of the Afri¬ 
can Slave Trade in the United States,” p. 169. 



20 


ONLY CASH-PAYING PHILANTHROPY. 


The good of our time find peace and perfection in this 
doctrine. 

4. Ouly Cash-Paying Philanthropy Wanted. 

But there are two final forms of proof with which we 
clinch the foregoing argument. First, England shows 
no inclination to go adventuring in those countries 
where there is magnificent opportunity for unselfish 
philanthropy and little or none for profit. Secondly, 
English dealing with the subjugated races shows that 
commerce and profit are primary, and that civilization 
and upbuilding are desired and fostered just in so far 
as they promote commerce and profit. Let us give 
examples. Leonard Courtney in his recent presiden¬ 
tial address before the Royal Statistical Society on 
“An Experiment in Commercial Expansion,” gave a 
study of the Congo Free State. Europe placed the 
Congo State in the hands of the King of Belgium for 
“ commercial and philanthropic exploitation.” The 
net commercial result was that “ the Congo trade rep¬ 
resented but little more than 0.7 per cent, of the total 
trade of Belgium.” This, said Mr. Courtney, “ was 
sadly disproportionate to the anticipations of the 
enterprise. ’ ’ 

He said that “ if we wished to think accurately about 
such enterprises as the Congo experiment, philanthropy 
and commerce must be separated fyom one another in our 
thoughts . As a philanthropic adventure the Congo 
had certainly been a very mixed success. An ex¬ 
tremely chequered record of war , enforced labor , and ex¬ 
acted tribute might , after long years , effect a certain 
transformation of the social condition of the inhabitants. . . 
As for the commercial success of the Congo, . . . enough 
had been said to show that it was disputable whether 
the resources of the country were such as to sustain a 
permanent trade, even with the help of the railway. . . . 
The immense development of wealth and commerce , and 
of civilized populations following the establishment of 
some of the colonies of Europe , had encouraged the belief 
that all adventures to which the same name could be 


ONLY CASH-PAYING PHILANTHROPY. 


21 


given must be crowned with the same success. Yet 
the conditions which had secured this success in the 
past could be easily indicated, and it became a simple 
inquiry whether like conditions were to be found in any 
land offered for new enterprise. . . We were justified in 
saying that nothing could be deduced from the history 
of American colonization or Indian domination to jus¬ 
tify hopes of a lucrative commercial expansion in Central 
Africa. Missionary and philanthropic labor might be 
spent there with approval, and with some measure of 
slow success, but the foundation of healthful colonies 
furnishing outlets for population and commerce was 
not hopeful. 

“ Sir R. Giffen moved a vote of thanks to Mr. Court¬ 
ney for his valuable paper, which was seconded by Sir 
F. S. Powell, who thought this country ought to be congrat¬ 
ulated that the Congo State did not belong to us. (Cheers.)" 

Here was an instance where a gathering of very in¬ 
fluential and representative Englishmen put itself on 
record as being highly gratified that England did not 
own the Congo, because there was no money in it, al¬ 
though the opportunities for civilization and philan¬ 
thropy there were recognized as immense. If civilizing 
were the actual as it is the feigned object of England 
this is the very kind of country that she would choose 
to own and to colonize, on account of its unbounded 
needs. The law of imperialistic colonizing is this : 
No outlay shall be made for ‘civilizing’ purposes 
which does not promise to return, sooner or later, the 
usual rate ot returns on invested capital. The corol¬ 
lary of this law is that civilization is not an end in 
itself but a means to an end—a means for increasing 
and firmly establishing commerce. This simple prin¬ 
ciple is a key to the entire mighty network of imperial¬ 
ist dogmas concerning duty, religion, humanity, un¬ 
selfishness and civilization. Lord Rosebery skilfully ad¬ 
mitted and used this principle in his eulogy of the 
Sirdar’s college, when he said that ‘ if our civilization 
was to prevail against other contending European civili- 
zations , etc., ... he [Kitchener] saw that a beginning 
must be made in the way of a center of education.’ 


22 


IS INDIA HAPPY? 


5. Is India Happy ? 

The dealings of England with her lower subject 
races are a sturdy proof that civilizing and uplifting 
are not her ends excepting as they increase and 
strengthen her sources of income. Of the recent ter¬ 
rific slaughter of the Soudanese by machine guns, I 
shall not speak here, but shall take the illustration 
that is most favorable to England—the Indian Empire. 
One word first, however, as to what civilization and 
race upbuilding is. It is the boast of English Imperial¬ 
ists that England ‘ brings into the minds and into the 
lives of the subject people, not as phantoms of the im¬ 
agination, but as solid, vivid realities, the ideas of 
order, justice, and humanity.’ (Mr. Asquith.) But 
these ideas alone are very far from civilizing. The dog 
in distinction to the wolf has these ideas, learned from 
contact with civilized man. He is tender, kind, or¬ 
derly, and true, he is even just, but he lacks that 
which the concept of civilization demands. He lacks 
independent development, self-development, the power 
of standing alone and going forward without leaning 
or being led. Order, justice, and humanity are de¬ 
veloped in chattel slaves, but they lack a prime requis¬ 
ite of civilization, without which civilization is not. 
They are not free. Now the glib lords and lawyers, 
bishops and parliamentarians and prophets of England 
are fiery in praise of the order and security that 
England establishes, but they do not explain to us just 
what these are worth without freedom, self-government, 
and self-development, a thing that we should very much 
like to know. 

To what extent is England developing the Indians, 
strengthening their character, training them to be self- 
sustained, independent, and free ? As to this none can 
speak better- than Indians themselves. The Eondon 
Indian Society held its annual conference for 1898 not 
long ago* and the members gave very vigorous ex¬ 
pression to their opinion of British treatment of India. 
The chairman, Mr. D. Naoroji, moved a resolution : 


♦Dec. 28, 1898. Reported in the Loudon Daily Chronicle. 



IS INDIA HAPPY? 


23 


“That in accordance with the oft-declared and 
pledged policy of the British people, through Acts and 
Resolutions of Parliament and Proclamations of Her 
Majesty the Queen, to treat Indians exactly as the Brit¬ 
ish subjects in this country; . . . this conference is of 
opinion and urges upon the government in the name of 
British justice and honor, that Indians should be al¬ 
lowed commissions and command in the Indian army 
in the same manner and through the same methods as 
are open to Englishmen. ...” 

‘ Mr. Naoroji referred to the bravery and heroism 
shown by the native soldiers. . . They ought by rights 
to be treated as British citizens, but the practice of the 
authorities was the very reverse. The chairman 
quoted opinions which showed that the native soldiers 
had remained true to their salt , even to the extent of 
lighting bravely against their own kith and kin. . . . He 
claimed something more than justice from the British 
people ; he claimed their gratitude. (Cheers.) It was 
the money and blood of India which had built up the 
British Empire there. (Cheers.)... The present system 
was not only an injustice ; it was a gross insult to the 
whole Indian nation. (Cheers.) Pie had been in 
communication with the War Office on the matter, and 
had been told that the Queen’s Warrant forbade Indian 
subjects holding commissions in the Indian army.’ 

It would be unnecessary to read further to learn the 
degradation of Indian character under British rule. 
Although debarred of all promotion and compelled to 
serve in the lowest rank against their own countrymen, 
against their own flesh and blood, they obey. True to 
their salt, less manly and chivalrous than common 
mercenaries or bandits, they slaughter fathers, broth¬ 
ers, sons at the command of foreigners. They are 
proud of it. The fashion of their grievance is that they 
want a share of the military offices. And on the other 
hand the civilizing English cannot spare them—they 
want all good things for themselves. And yet the 
British people through acts of Parliament and other 
means ‘ had often pledged themselves to treat Indians 
exactly as British subjects in England !’ 


24 


IS INDIA HAPPY? 


Seconding the resolution, Mr. Mahtab Singh said 
that ‘ as loyal subjects they wanted to warn the British 
Government of the danger of its present policy, which 
if not altered would turn a nation of patriotic and loyal 
subjects into rebels, whose aim would be to destroy the 
British rule. (Cheers.) ’ 

The resolution was carried unanimously. 

Mr. Romesh Chunder Dutt moved a resolution ‘ de¬ 
ploring all legislation restricting self-government in 
India.’ Under Northbrook’s vice-royalty, he said, 

‘ representative government was first introduced into 
India, which conferred upon the rate-payers of Cal¬ 
cutta the right to select two-thirds of their municipal 
councillors. Since then this measure has worked ex¬ 
tremely well, and the new municipal council had trans¬ 
formed Calcutta into one of the healthiest places in In¬ 
dia. The time had now come for the extension of 
municipal government to other municipalities, but the 
present Government was no friend of municipal govern¬ 
ment. It had been striving to curtail the powers of the 
London County Council, and therefore there was no 
wonder that it was trying to abrogate Lord North¬ 
brook’s valuable measure. (Shame.) Never within 
his memory had there been such a state of alarm through¬ 
out the whole of Bengal as had been caused by this meas¬ 
ure. The impression was spreading that it was not pos¬ 
sible to obtain any new rights by constitutional methods. 
There had been forty years of peace and loyalty, and 
now the Government by its action was teaching a very 
dangerous lesson to the people of India. (Cheers.) ’ 

Mr. R. C. Sen said ‘ it was a mistake to trust too 
much to the generosity of the English people.’ 

Mr. Bipin Chunder Pal moved: “That this meet¬ 
ing condemns the new Sedition Law of India, (i) 
which makes invidious distinctions between different 
classes of her Majesty’s subjects ; (2) which seeks to 
restrict the free discussion of Indian measures by her 
Majesty’s Indian subjects in England, by threats of 
prosecution on their return to India; (3) which takes 
away the liberty of the press that has been enjoyed in 
India for over half a century, and substitutes a method 


IS INDIA HAPPY? 


25 


of repression, unworthy of the British government; (4) 
which empowers magistrates in India, who are heads 
of the police, to demand security for good behavior 
from editors of newspapers, to refuse such security when 
offered, and to send the editors to jail with hard labor 
without trial for any specific offence ; . . 

No people in the world have said more in censure 01 
the French methods of justice exposed by the case of 
Dreyfus, or of the German gag laws and Imperial 
prosecutions for the terrible crime of speaking as you 
think, called lese majestat, than the English, yet here 
is England jailing Indian editors without trial, through 
her Dogberry police magistrates and depriving her In¬ 
dian subjects of the right of free speech. This is the 
England that, as Mr. Asquith says, makes the ideas ot 
order, justice and humanity, * solid, vivid realities’ in 
the minds and lives of the people dependent on her. 

Mr. Pal enforced his resolution by declaring that 
‘ those who had drawn it up had committed sedition 
under the new law over and over again. (Laughter 
and cheers.) Further the people who had been speak¬ 
ing that afternoon could be prosecuted in India for 
their speeches—that is, if they were Indian natives. 
If they were English-born, they could say what they 
liked. The freedom of the Press had been the bulwark 
of English rule in India for the past forty years. The 
speech of the previous speaker was only an indication 
of the spirit which was growing up amongst the youug 
men in India. There was a spirit of unrest and dis¬ 
content which was spreading in quarters of which 
Government knew little. Sedition was present in In¬ 
dia, and if the government shut up the mouths of the 
educated Indians, who alone could explain to their 
fellow-countrymen what British rule meant to India, 
and how necessary it was that it should continue, it 
must be prepared for an outburst which would shake 
the British Empire to its foundations. (Cheers.) ’ 

It would plainly seem that England has brought her¬ 
self to a grave dilemma. She is convinced that if she 
does not enforce harsh sedition laws which shut the 
mouths of the educated Indians and prevent them from 


2 6 


IS INDIA HAPPY? 


‘ explaining to their fellow-countrymen what British 
rule means in India,’ there will be a sedition, and here 
is a body of highly intelligent Indians assuring her 
that if she does not repeal those obnoxious laws and 
give the educated a chance to smooth the situation over 
to the masses of their countrymen there will be ‘ an 
outburst that will shake the British Empire to its foun¬ 
dations.’ In other words British rule is neither safe if 
it is explained nor if it is not explained : it will not 
bear investigation and it will not bear not being 
investigated. 

Having this expression of opinion from the Hindus, 
let us consider the words of a candid Englishman, Mr. 
Gold win Smith. He believes that India ‘ ‘ has been 
steadily administered in the interest of the Hindu.” 
Granting for the moment only that this is so—we do 
not grant it longer—the incapacity of England to civ¬ 
ilize is even the more shown by the results, for her 
efforts to help have ‘ reduced the population to human 
sheep, without aspirations, without spur to self-im¬ 
provement of any kind.’ This climax of seventy-five 
years of civilizing effort thoroughly discredits the prin¬ 
ciple of Imperialism. “ If,” Mr. Smith says, ‘‘ empire 
is to be regarded as a field for philanthropic effort and 
the advancement of civilization, it may safely be said 
that nothing in that way equals, or ever has equalled, 
the British Empire in India. For the last three-quar¬ 
ters of a century at all events, the Empire has been 
steadily administered in the interest of the Hindu. Yet 
what is the result ? Two hundred millions of human 
sheep, without native leadership, without patriotism, 
without aspirations, without spur to self-improvement 
of any kind ; multiplying, too many of them, in abject 
poverty and in infantile dependence on a government 
which their numbers and necessity will too probably 
in the end overwhelm. Great Britain has deserved 
and won the respect of the Hindu ; but she has never 
won, and is perhaps now less likely than ever to win, 
his love. The two races remain perfectly alien to each 
other. Eord Elgin sorrowfully observes, that there is 
more of a bond between man and dog than between 


SPECIMENS OF BRITISH HUMANITY. 27 

Englishman and Hindu. The natives generally, hav¬ 
ing been disarmed, cannot rise against the conqueror ; 
and their disaffection is shown only in occasional and 
local outbreaks, chiefly of a religious character, or in 
the impotent utterances of the native press.”* 

Of such periodic phenomena as Indian plagues 
and famines, their conduciveness to Hindu happiness, 
and British responsibility for them, I shall say but lit¬ 
tle. Julian Hawthorn and Lee Merewether, after per¬ 
sonal investigations in India during the famine plague 
of 1897, agreed that not less than “eight million per¬ 
sons had already died of famine and disease directly 
caused thereby ”—“ eight times the population of New 
York ; nearly twice that of London,”f and the famine 
had not then run its course. Mr. Hawthorn tried 
lamely to exculpate the English government and then 
said : “ It is true that at the moment when millions 

of Indians were starving, there was paid in London for 
seats to see the Jubilee money enough to avert all that 
inconceivable suffering —yes, and much of it was paid 
by Americans ; and the rest was paid by other foreign¬ 
ers and by the English themselves. It was a vain and 
selfish expenditure no doubt; but it was spent, not by the 
Government, but by private persons. They were like 
other persons all over the world. ” As if the waste of 
these resources at such a time by private persons in the 
slightest degree mitigated the responsibility and crime 
of the English nation ! And that these vain and self¬ 
ish spenders, ourselves included, ‘ were like other per¬ 
sons all over the world,’ is the very thing that shows 
conclusively that these civilized people ‘ all over the 
world ’ cannot rule a subject race unselfishly. 

6. British Humanity in the Soudan. 

The facts, we believe, warrant this statement: That 
lower races under Imperial rule are dealt with on a 
code of principles specially framed for them, and differ¬ 
ing widely from the principles that white races observe 


*“ The Moral of the Cuban War,” in the Forum, Nov. 1898. 
fThe Cosmopolitan Magazine, 1897, pp. 372-3, and 658. 



28 SPECIMENS OF BRITISH HUMANITY. 

toward one another. The codes for the lesser races 
vary. Take as instance the Belgian code toward the 
Congo Free State. This Free State “ is not,” says the 
Saturday Review,* “free in any sense of the word. 
The Belgians have replaced the slavery they found by 
a system of servitude at least as objectionable. Of 
what certain Belgians can do in the way of barbarity 
Englishmen are painfully aware. Mr. Courtney [in 
the address already quoted] mentions an instance of a 
Captain Rom who ornamented his flower beds with the 
heads of twenty-one natives killed in a punitive expe¬ 
dition. This is the Belgian idea of the most effectual 
method of promoting the civilization of the Congo. 
Exports from the State fall seriously short of imports ; 
such as they are, they are maintained not by legiti¬ 
mate commerce, but by raids made on the ivory stores 
of luckless native chiefs where tribute is said to be in 
arrears. The tax-gatherer, as we know from consular 
reports, follows every step of life in the Congo State. 
Yet expenditure is something like a quarter of a mil¬ 
lion sterling beyond its income, and the King of the 
Belgians has to bear the burden of ,£40,000 a year in 
order that Belgium may increase her trade by o. 7 per 
cent.” England claims that her code is better than 
this, and thence makes the dizzy j ump that it approaches 
the stainless and perfect. In truth it is a code for lower 
races, framed to keep them dependent for unknown 
periods, and framed with the intent to give the English 
trade benefits. Her code, as already indicated, is 
shrewder business policy. 

But is the English page so clean and white ? Was 
Captain Rom an exceptional brute to the wretched 
Africans ? It would not seem so if we contemplate the 
British Soudan campaign. There seem to have been 
atrocities there well nigh unheard of in ‘ civilized ’ 
warring before. Mr. E. N. Bennett, an eye witness, 
tells of these in the January Contemporary Review. { 


*December 17, 1898. 

fOf Mr. Bennett’s title to a hearing the N. Y. Tribune says : “ He is not 
to be coughed down as a credulous schoolmaster, who ought to have con- 
fined his energies to entomology and archaeology, and to have kept at a 
safe distance from the battle-field.” 



SPECIMENS OF BRITISH HUMANITY. 29 

‘ ‘On our left along the lower slopes of Gebel Surg- 
ham a large number of camp-followers and native 
servants were already busy among the white-clad fig¬ 
ures which lay stretched in little groups as our shell 
fire or the long-range volleys of the Lee-Metfords had 
struck them down. These looters had armed them¬ 
selves somehow or other with rifles, spears, and even 
clubs, and made short work of any wounded man they 
came across. Poor wretches who in their agony had 
crawled under the scanty shade of a rock or shrub were 
clubbed to death or riddled with bullets by the irres¬ 
ponsible brutality of these native servants, who were 
in such wholesome dread of a Dervish, even when pros¬ 
trate, that they frequently fired several shots into 
bodies already dead before they advanced to strip the 
corpse of its gibbeh of arms. . . . This wholesale 
slaughter was not confined to Arab servants. It was 
stated that orders had been given to kill the wounded. 
Whether this was so or not I do not know, but cer¬ 
tainly no protest was made when the Soudanese dis¬ 
patched scores of wounded men who lay in their path. 
The Dervishes who were stretched on the sand within 
a few yards were bayoneted, or, in some instances, 
stabbed with their own spears. . . Arabs who lay further 
out in the desert at some little distance from the line 
of march, and happened, unfortunately for themselves, 
to move or turn over in their agony, were immediately 
pierced by rifle bullets. On some occasions shots were 
fired into the bodies of wounded men at such close 
quarters that the smell of burning flesh was positively 
sickening.” 

Justification is pleaded because the wounded Arab 
sometimes treacherously slaughters his enemy, but Mr. 
Bennett replies that the instances of this ‘ are, after all, 
extremely few in number,’ and that ‘ the wounded 
Dervish has become dangerous because he fully ex¬ 
pects to be killed.’ He continues : 

“ But no justification whatever exists for the butchery 
of unarmed or manifestly helpless men lying wounded 
on the ground. This certainly took place after the 
battle of Omdurman. Dervishes who lay with shat- 


30 SPECIMENS OF BRITISH HUMANITY. 

tered legs or arms, absolutely without weapons, were 
bayoneted and shot without mercy. This unsoldierly 
work was not even left to the exclusive control of the 
black troops ; our own British soldiers took part in it. 
At one place, on the western slopes of Surgham, I 
noticed a fine old Dervish with a gray beard, who, dis¬ 
abled by a wound in his leg, lay prostrate beside a 
small bush. He had apparently attempted to escape 
toward Omdurman with the rest of the Khalifa’s forces 
who survived, but his wound had prevented this, and 
the fugitive had sunk down on the ground about eight 
yards behind his son, a boy of seventeen, whose right 
leg had also been lacerated by a bullet. Neither the 
father nor the son had any weapons at all y yet a High¬ 
lander stepped out of the ranks and drove his bayonet 
through the old man’s chest. The victim of this need¬ 
less brutality begged in vain for mercy, and clutched 
the soldier’s bayonet, reddening his hands with his 
own blood in a futile attempt to prevent a second 
thrust. No effort was made by any comrade or officer 
to prevent this gratuitous bit of butchery, nor, of 
course, could any officer have interfered very well, if 
the soldier—as was said to be the case—was only act¬ 
ing in accordance with the wishes of the general in 
command.” 

The general in command was the Sirdar, that Lord 
Kitchener who has been making the noble appeals to 
the British purse to found a college near the site of 
these slaughters, for the advancement of humanity. 
Let us follow Mr. Bennett’s description of British hu¬ 
manity a little farther. 

‘ ‘ No attempt was made, either on the day of the 
battle or next day, to do anything for the wounded 
Dervishes. ... To lie for two days without water in 
the heat of a Soudan August is bad enough, but when 
the natural thirst is augmented by the fever which in¬ 
variably accompanies gunshot wounds the torture must 
be terrible. . . . Hundreds of wounded Dervishes who 
had failed’to escape from the field were left to perish 
miserably within easy reach of our succour had it been 
forthcoming.” 


SPECIMENS OB BRITISH HUMANITY. 31 

The story of unspeakable British barbarism con¬ 
tinues : 

‘ ‘ There was another feature in our capture of Omdur- 
man which was truly deplorable. By the time we had 
repulsed the last Dervish attack and were rapidly ad¬ 
vancing upon Omdurman, the streets leading to the 
southern exits of the town were crowded with fugitives. 
In addition to mounted Baggaras and Dervish infantry, 
a chaotic mass of non-combatants, men, women and 
children, dragging after them camels, horses, and 
donkeys, laden with goods and chattels—all this con¬ 
fused stream of human beings and animals was press¬ 
ing madly forward in panic-stricken flight. Orders 
were given to fire upon the fugitives, and, as the 
artillerymen on the gunboats from their raised posi¬ 
tions could see well over the walls, a deadly fire was 
opened upon the crowded thoroughfares. One street 
especially, which led down to the river, was swept by 
a frightful hail of Maxim bullets, which mowed the 
fugitives down in scores. . . . Next day some five 
hundred dead bodies lay scattered about the streets of 
Omdurman, and among them were corpses of women 
and little children. . . . Two women were bending 
sorrowfully over the dead body of a Dervish, when a 
non-commissioned officer went up and deliberately shot 
one of the women with a revolver. 

The attention of those who erroneously think that the 
Anglo-Saxon is an humane and civilizing race is re¬ 
spectfully called to Mr. Bennett’s conclusions : 

‘ ‘ I have written the above paragraphs with the ut¬ 
most reluctance, but it is certainly high time that the 
conscience of civilized nations realized that some consider- 
atio?is are due even to a semi-civilized or barbarous en¬ 
emy . The conduct of the Belgians in the Congo Free 
State, the French in Algeria, the Germans in the 
Camaroons, the Russians in Central Asia, ourselves in 
South Africa and the Soudan— the conduct of the various 
nations who are sharing in the partition of Africa and 
Asia , seems to be based on the assumption that the rights 
of the native in a state of war are practically nil. . . . 

“ Christian Kngland goes almost wild with indig- 


SPECIMENS OF BRITISH HUMANITY. 


32 

nation if Moslems commit atrocities. . . . But Prot¬ 
estant sympathies seem almost incapable of extension 
beyond the limits of Christendom. No public sympathy 
is bestowed upon the wretched natives who , when they in¬ 
cur inevitable defeat at the hands of the civilized invader , 
aie either butchered as they lie wounded on the field or are 
left to die without an effort to save them. 

In the London Morning Post of September 29 Lieu¬ 
tenant Winston Churchill wrote.* 

“ We had not gone far when individual Dervishes 
began to walk toward the advancing squadrons, throw¬ 
ing down their weapons, holding up their hands, and 
imploring mercy. The laws of war do not admit the 
right of a beaten enemy to quarter. The victor is not 
obliged to accept his surrender. Of his charity he may 
do so, but there is no obligation, provided, of course, 
that he makes it clear to the suppliant that he must 
continue to fight.” 

The presumption is that these suppliants for mercy 
were murdered by the world-civilizing and humane 
English. 

If the general assumption of the civilized Powers of 
Europe, including England, is that ‘ the rights of the 
native in a state of war are practically nil,' what will 
be their opinion of these rights when the natives are 
not in a state of war ? This question searches civili¬ 
zation through and through. The answer to it is that 
the treatment of the natives in peace will be as far be¬ 
low the standard of treatment of equal whites, as the 
treatment of the natives in a state of war is below the 
treatment of the whites in a state of war. 

The just conclusion from this review of English pur¬ 
poses, achievement, and methods, is that we should 
not be helping the world by going to the aid of 
English Imperialism. The vaunted battle for civiliza¬ 
tion that she has been fighting has been for herself. 
By going to her rescue in the name of Anglo-Saxonism 
we should be helping to enthrone English methods of 
selfishness over mankind. Let England change before 


♦Quoted by Mr. Bennett. 



SPECIMENS OF BRITISH HUMANITY. 


33 


she asks this. Let us refuse to aid her until she does 
change. Let us act on the truth that the Anglo-Sax- 
onism represented by British Imperialism is not a good, 
that it is coarse, grasping, domineering and cruel, and 
if she will walk in that path let her walk alone. Let 
us save our branch of the race for better things, and 
restrain ourselves from being used as a tool of her 
folly. Let us denounce her too flimsy hypocrisy and 
do what we can, in conjunction with her real states¬ 
men and her nobler citizens, to win her to a more hon¬ 
est and honorable national life. 


2 



CHAPTER III. 

Our Crime in the Philippine Islands 


1. The New Policy of Corruption. 

We now propose to show that the new American 
Imperialism is a strict reproduction of the British Im¬ 
perialism that has been described. If that is lovely 
and desirable, so is its American imitation. But let us 
permit American Imperialists to speak for themselves 
and to disclose their own character as we have allowed 
the English to do. This will show whether the Anglo- 
Saxonism that would be carried to the Philippines and 
elsewhere is worth carrying, or should be watchfully 
kept at home and extinguished. 

Charles Denby, our one time minister to China and 
now a member of McKinley’s commission to study the 
Philippines, has published a brief paper in answer to 
the question “Shall We Keep the Philippines?’’ * 
Being a man of prominence and authority among the 
expansionists we give his words their due weight. 
They express the change in American morality toward 
the world which expansionists are inculcating and 
practising. This man is the type of those who sur¬ 
round and influence the president. He defines a hard 
and selfish national policy toward the weak. Every 
important thing that has happened, everything that is 
happening, goes to establish this proposition: 

That hard and selfish men , and hard and selfish poli¬ 
cies , will control our imperialist relations; that the kind 
and well-meaning will be overruled . There is no inten- 


*The Forum, November, 1898. 




NEW POLICY OF CORRUPTION. 


35 


tion of mildness , humanity and justice , zrc forces that 
are now gaining ascendency in American life. 

Here is Mr. Denby, the type of the hard and selfish 
imperialist politician of the new school, openly im¬ 
pressing upon the country this crass and vulgar 
European doctrine. Thus Mr. Denby: 

“. . . We have become a great people. We have a 
great commerce to take care of. We have to compete 
with the commercial nations of the world in far-distant 
markets. Commerce , not politics is kmg. The manu¬ 
facturer and the merchant dictate to diplomacy , and con¬ 
trol elections. The art of arts is the extension of 
commercial relations,—in plain language, the selling 
of native products and manufactured goods. 

“I learned what I know of diplomacy in a severe 
school. I found among my colleagues not the least hesi¬ 
tation in proposing to their respective Governments to do 
anything which was supposed to be conducive to their 
interests. There can be no other rule for the government 
of all persons who are charged with the conduct of affairs 
than the promotion of the welfare of their respective 
countries. * ’ 

This then is what expansion and that noble ‘world- 
diplomacy’ with which our ears are being daily tickled, 
bring us to! Here is Mr. Denby, corrupt and confes¬ 
sedly corrupted by this high diplomacy which is to 
make us a sainted and respected nation before man¬ 
kind, glorying in the corruption and trying to corrupt 
his countrymen. If there was ever needed proof that 
we should keep ourselves unspotted from the filth and 
foulness of those European and Asiatic complications 
that territory stealing will assuredly bring, here is that 
proof. For contact with European codes inflicts those 
codes upon us. Denby continues his exposure of 
Imperialism, and applies its Christlike morality to the 
Philippines: 

“We. have the right as conquerors to hold the Phil¬ 
ippines. We have the right to hold them as part pay¬ 
ment of a war indemnity. This policy may be charac¬ 
terized as unjust to Spain; but is the result of the for- 



36 NEW POLICY OF CORRUPTION. 

tunes of war. All nations recognize that the conqueror 
may dictate the terms of peace.” 

‘‘I am in favor of holding the Philippines because I 
cannot conceive of any alternative to our doing so, 
except the seizure of territory in China; and I prefer to 
hold them rather than to oppress further the helpless 
Government and people of China. I want China to 
preserve her autonomy, to become great and prosper¬ 
ous; and I want these results not for the interests of 
China , but for our interests. I am not the agent or 
attorney of China; and , as an American , I do not look to 
the promotion of China's interests , or Spain's t or any 
other country's—but simply of our own. 

“The whole world sees in China a splendid market 
for our native products,—our timber, our locomotives, 
our rails, our coal oil, our sheetings, our mining-plants 
and numberless other articles. ’ ’ 

“Dewey’s victory is an epoch in the affairs of the Far 
East. We hold our heads higher. We are coming to 
our own. We are stretching out our hands for what 
nature meant should be ours. We are taking our 
proper rank among the nations of the world. We are 
after markets , the greatest markets now existing in the 
world. Along with these markets will go our beneficent 
institutions ; and humanity will bless us." 

This is an exquisite example of the British cant and 
bathos which is exhibiting itself serenely in 
the new Imperial America. Wherever the basest ot 
international principles of pilfering and freebooting are 
applied to gain markets, “along with these markets will 
go our beneficent institutions. ’ ’ The halo of our bless¬ 
ed institutions will pervade and rectify rapacity and 
wrong! But it will not. We shall not build beneficent 
institutions on ruffianism and rapacity. ‘We are after 
markets, the greatest markets in the world,’ we do not 
care what we do to get them: we will cheerfully rob 
and kill, we will wrench their fatherland from the weak 
and call it ours, we admit it in cold blood, but like 
the praying professional murderer, we piously declare 
that God and humanity will bless us in it. How did 
our war of humanity to rescue Cuba establish the irrel- 


NEW POLICY OF CORRUPTION. 37 

evant and unheard-of conclusion that unless we take 
the Philippines there is ‘no alternative except the seiz¬ 
ure of territory in China?’ There is no bridge between 
these two irreconcilable opposites excepting the benefi¬ 
cent institution of American rapacity. The Philippines 
have done us no wrong, China has done us no wrong, 
but because Spain wronged Cuba and we had compas¬ 
sion, we do no wrong in wronging either the Philip¬ 
pines or China. This is the Imperialists’ creed. 

Now we do not expect to reach such men as Mr. 
Denby or Mr. Denby’s type—the president, the advis¬ 
ers of the president, the whole tribe of commercial, 
political, and newspaper Imperialists, who are hound¬ 
ing the nation to crime. “Commerce, not politics, is 
king. The manufacturer and the merchant dictate to 
diplomacy, a?id control elections .” We realize this. 
But we turn away from these classes to the people. We 
think that when they realize the brazen fraud being 
practised on them, they will decide to control elections, 
not only to put an end to the dishonest and ruffianly 
policy of Imperialism, but to put an end to the suprem¬ 
acy of commerce over man. 

But Mr. Denby has not even yet conveyed to us all 
the light he has in him. In a more recent article* he 
presents Imperialist principles in their engaging naked¬ 
ness without the usual shreds of moral clothing. 

“If,’’ he says, “the argument made herein has any 
force, the legal and constitutional difficulties which 
were quoted against expansion have disappeared, and 
the cold, hard, practical question alone remains. Will 
the possession of these islands benefit us as a nation ? 
If it will not , set them free tomorrow , and let their peo¬ 
ple , if they please, cut each other 1 s throats , or play what 
pranks they please. To this complexion we must come at 
last , that , unless it is beneficial for us to hold these islands , 
we should turn them loose." 

We ask this question: Why, this being the mind 
and purpose of our imperialist politicians and commer- 
cialists, are they allowed to grimace and pose before 


•The Forum, February, 1899. 



38 


mckinley proclaims war. 


the nation as philanthropists and moralists ? Why do 
we not enforce upon them silence about the good they 
intend to do the conquered savages, when it is an 
acknowledged lie? ‘Let the Filipinos cut each other’s 
throats unless the appropriation of their country will 
help our trade. Damn the good we might do them. 
We are not in this expansion business for their good. ’ 
It is true we are not, but we command you hereafter 
to stop telling us that we are. We propose to hold 
this argument on your basis, that of hard, brutal self¬ 
ishness, and to decide whether it is best for us to put 
ourselves and the peoples absorbed into your selfish 
hands by adopting your Imperialist policy. And is it 
too solemn a question to press upon the moral expan¬ 
sionists, whether they think in their own unselfish 
minds that they will be able to overcome and rule these 
selfish commercial Imperialists and keep them in the 
paths of righteousness after the deed is done ? If they 
are so moonstruck let them study the forces that now 
rule this country, and compare them.with the paths of 
righteousness. 

Mr. Denby, who is willing the Filipinos shall cut 
each other’s throats if preventing them will not fill our 
pockets, has one more word which makes an easy 
transition from Imperialist theory to Imperialist prac¬ 
tice. He writes as an inspired commercial prophet 
and a poet: 

“In other lands and other wars the condition of the 
conquered people has been hard and deplorable. In 
our case we march bearing gifts, the choicest gifts— 
liberty and hope and happiness. We carry with us all 
that gives to the flower of life its perfume. The dusky 
East rises at our coming; and the Filipino springs to 
his feet and becomes a free man. This is not poetry, 
but reality wrought out by a people to whom freedom 
is the breath of life, and who would scorn to enslave a 
country or a race.” 

2. McKinley’s Proclamation of War. 

When our Congress passed the resolutions which 
involved us in war with Spain it pledged the following: 


McRINUFY PROCLAIMS WAR. 


39 


Fourth: That the United States hereby disclaims any dispo¬ 
sition or intention to exercise sovereignty , jurisdiction , or con¬ 
trol over said island [Cuba], except for the pacification thereof, 
and asserts its determination , when that is accomplished , to leave 
the government and control of the island to its people. 

In his message to Congress of December, 1897, 
McKinley recorded and pledged himself in now famous 
and memorable language. Said he: 

“Ispeak not offorcible annexation , because that is not to be 
thought of , and under our code of morality that would be crim¬ 
inal aggression .” 

But one year later, on December 21, 1898, this man 
on his own initiative, without the authority of Con¬ 
gress or the people, more than a month before the 
Treaty of Peace was ratified by the Senate, and when 
there was no certainty that it would be ratified, issued 
the following astounding proclamation to the Filipinos: 

“With the signature of the treaty of peace between the United 
States and Spain by their respective plenipotentiaries, at Paris, 
on the 10th inst., and as the result of the victories of American 
arms, the future control, disposition, and government of the 
Philippine Islands are ceded to the United States. In fulfil¬ 
ment of the rights of sovereignty thus acquired and the 
responsible obligations of government thus assumed, the actual 
occupation and administration of the entire group of the Phil¬ 
ippine Islands becomes immediately necessary, and the mil¬ 
itary government heretofore maintained by the United States 
in the city, harbor, and bay of Manila is to be extended with 
all possible despatch to the whole of the ceded territory. 

“In performing this duty the military commander of the 
United States is enjoined to make known to the inhabitants of 
the Philippine Islands, that in succeeding to the sovereignty of 
Spain, in severing the former political relations of the inhabit¬ 
ants and in establishing a new political power, the authority of 
the United States is to be exerted for the security of the per¬ 
sons and property of the people of the islands, and for the con¬ 
firmation of all their private rights and relations. It will be the 
duty of the commander of the forces of occupation to announce 
and proclaim in the most public manner that we come, not as 
invaders or conquerors, but as friends, to protect the natives in 
their homes, in their employments, and in their personal and 
religious rights. 

“All persons who, either by active aid or by honest submis¬ 
sion, co-operate with the government of the United States to 
give effect to these beneficent purposes, will receive the reward 
of its support and protection. All others will be brought within 
the lawful rule we have assumed, with firmness if need be, but 
without severity so far as may be possible. 


40 


PkoCtAlMS WAS.. 


“Within the absolute domain of military authority, which 
necessarily is and must remain supreme in the cedfcd territory 
until the legislation of the United States shall otherwise pro¬ 
vide, etc.” 

This proclamation drove the Filipinos into war 
against the United States. There was nothing left for 
them to do unless they consented to national enslave¬ 
ment. It was not only natural but right that they 
should go to war against us. Our Chief Man had 
notified them by arbitrary degree that if they did not 
submit to the usurped authority of the United States 
—“the absolute domain of military authority,” he 
called it—they would be forced into submission by 
shell and grapeshot. “Honest submission,” or death: 
they had their choice. “Honest submission,” or 
“forcible annexation.” All who did not honestly sub¬ 
mit to the proclamation of the tyrant were to be 
“brought within the lawful rule we have assumed, 
with firmness if need be.” On the 5th of February 
that firmness began to be applied and 4000 heroic Fili¬ 
pinos who could not honestly submit to the self-made 
despot were killed. The man who killed them was 
William McKinley. The death of each one of them 
was groundless man-slaughter, McKinley was their 
murderer. He was their self-condemned murderer, 
convicted by his own words of one year before. “I 
speak not of forcible annexation, because that is not to 
be thought of, and under our code of morality that would 
be criminal aggression .” 

Under the light of this solemn promise and its bloody 
repudiation McKinley reveals himself to be the crown¬ 
ing fraud and hypocrite of the age, who has no right to 
respect from any honest man in the United States. He 
originally declared a true American principle, that we 
cannot take any form of authority over a people that is 
opposed to that authority without criminal aggression 
and breaking our code of morality; this code holds of 
Cuba, of the Philippines, and of every foot of ground 
not our own under the sun that our cupidity might be 
disposed to seize. The breaking of this code, con¬ 
sciously held and publicly announced, was therefore 


AL,E RIGHTS FORFEITED. 4! 

an act of detestable piracy, bringing shame and dis¬ 
honor upon the whole nation. 

The administration and the imperialist press have 
striven to convince our people that the Filipinos are 
responsible for the war. This is one of the lies that we 
must tell each other to save a last remnant of our self- 
respect. But it is nevertheless a lie with no mitigation. 
McKinley declared war in his Proclamation, and the 
Filipinos began hostilities. The feeble McKinley 
doubtless honestly hoped that they would honestly 
submit to his declaration that they were to be as a con¬ 
quered and subject people to the United States, with¬ 
out the sad necessity of being obliged to forcibly con¬ 
quer them. The subterfuge did not work. They had 
never acknowledged the sovereignty of the United 
States: for the United States to declare sovereignty was 
therefore for the United States to declare war. 

After the ‘ ‘criminal aggression” of McKinley’s proc¬ 
lamation that a state of virtual war already existed, 
that they must submit or be killed, there was nothing 
for them to do but to fight. And every true American 
who resents this dastardly aggression by the president 
upon a harmless race of barbarians, should be deeply 
thankful that they did fight, and must hope that our 
arms will not be able to subdue them. No honorable 
American can uphold the criminal attempt of American 
potentates to deprive a weak race of its liberty in the 
name of liberty. As liberty-loving American citizens 
it is our duty to uphold the Filipinos in their righteous 
and patriotic attempt to keep our yoke from falling on 
them. 

3. All Our Rights Forfeited. 

For those who hesitate at this let us examine the 
president’s rights when he proclaimed honest submis¬ 
sion or kind but firm death to the Filipinos. 1. There 
was no technical, formal, legal, or constitutional sanc¬ 
tion for his proclamation. 2. There would have been 
no right or sanction for it if the peace treaty had been 
ratified when he issued it. 

Let us first consider what rights we had in the Phil- 


42 


AW, RIGHTS FORFEITED. 


ippines before the treaty was approved, remembering 
that its subsequent approval was not retroactive, and 
could not lend legality to anything that was done 
before. Now whether we had any after its ratification, 
we certainly had no status of authority in the Philip¬ 
pines before that act. We were there purely as oppon¬ 
ents of Spain. We were not there as conquerors of the 
Filipinos, but as conquerors of Spain; the Filipinos had 
helped us drive Spain out. When hostilities ceased 
the islands were not ours except by temporary occu¬ 
pation. They were not ours either legally or morally. 
Spain had not ceded them and we had not decided to 
accept or even ask for them. The only power in 
America that could make our request for them legal 
and binding, or accept them if offered, was the Senate, 
and that had not done so. The propositions drawn up 
by the Peace Commissioners at Paris were merely an 
arrangement by which the United States, acting through 
the Senate as ordered in the Constitution, could request 
or demand the islands of Spain if it saw fit. The Sen¬ 
ate had not acted on the treaty and had consequently 
not even decided to ask for the Philippines. Our rights 
even technically were therefore nil. 

A proclamation of sovereignty from the president 
when the whole question whether we should take or 
claim the islands was pending, was justified by noth¬ 
ing but the arbitrary will of that ruler. It was no less 
an outrage than if he should proclaim our sovereignty 
over Canada, Ireland or the British Indies. The act 
was an insult to Spain and a profligate attack upon the 
Filipinos. 

Having issued this unlawful proclamation and so 
declared war on the Philippine Islanders, we forfeited 
all further claims over them excepting such as we might 
win by force if our challenge to war were taken up. 
After that proclamation the ratification of the treaty 
was a dead letter, for by our unlawful action all possi¬ 
bility of obtaining the Philippines legally or morally 
was lost. The question was now between us and them 
and was one of force. Of course if they chose to accept 
the position of a people conquered by us without being 


SPAIN’S EMPTY SOVEREIGNTY. 


43 


conquered, that was their business; but legally and 
morally they ought not to have accepted that humili¬ 
ation, and they did not do so. The president’s impu¬ 
dent aggression also deserved anything but success. 

To recapitulate: as we now stand we have no rights 
in the Philippines and can obtain none except by brute 
force. We ruled ourselves out by McKinley’s act of 
usurpation. Spain would have been justified in resent¬ 
ing that act had she been able, and Spain being unable 
the natives were justified. Until the acceptance of the 
treaty by both nations our policy in the Islands could 
be only provisional. If Spain finally approved the 
treaty she transferred to us such rights of sovereignty 
in the Philippines as she possessed. 

4. Could Spain Sell Us Sovereignty ? 

The two questions that next arise are, How much 
sovereignty did Spain possess to cede? and, Whether, 
even if she had any actual sovereignty, her cession of 
it to us gave us any true or moral rights over the 
Islands. 

According to the theory of national rights established 
by our revolution against England, Spain had no sov¬ 
ereignty in the Philippine Islands. Her yoke was 
arbitrarily imposed and maintained against their will. 
When there was a gleam of hope of success they 
resisted. There was certainly no moral sovereignty in 
this—it was merely, the sovereignty of an overpower¬ 
ing brutality. 

But now for the legal sovereignty. Spain was 
unable to conquer Cuba, before the war with us had 
destroyed her fleets and crippled all her resources. 
After that disaster is there any cause to believe that 
Spain could have quelled the insurgent Filipinos? 
None whatever. The Filipinos had seized the oppor¬ 
tunity of our Spanish war to strike another blow for 
freedom. After the war the weakened Spaniards could 
no more have conquered them than they previously 
could conquer Cuba. Hence Spain had no lawful 
sovereignty in the Philippines. We may grant her the 
same supremacy there that she had in Cuba when we 


44 


SPAIN’S EMPTY SOVEREIGNTY. 


took up Cuba’s cause, and we then denied that she 
had any rightful supremacy there. We began war to 
compel her to take her unrighteous hands away from 
that property to which she had lost all right. For the 
same reasons Spain had no sovereignty over the Phil¬ 
ippines to sell or give away, wherefore we could buy 
none of her. 

We, then, have entered into the same relation to the 
Philippines that Spain stood in to Cuba—the relation 
that caused us to declare a war of liberation. Who 
will declare war against us to liberate the Philippines ? 
What great philanthropic Power, in response to the 
claims of humanity, will rise to this great moral crisis 
and command us to evacuate the territory that we are 
subduing to our new greed ? Hither our war for Cuba was 
unjust, or, on the principles which we invoked to jus¬ 
tify it, we ought to be driven out of the Philippines. 
If we continue our present Spanish policy there we 
condemn our war against Spain as groundless and 
iniquitous. 

We have the answer to our first question. Spain 
had no sovereignty in the Asiatic Group to cede. She 
could grant a parchment claim—she could also have 
given away as much of Cuba as that any time these 
years back. 

As to whether we could acquire a moral right to this 
territory by Spanish cession, our historical actions set¬ 
tled that question beyond a peradventure long ago. 
When we declared our independence of England we 
announced the principle that a people who were dis¬ 
satisfied with the rule of a nation claiming them as a 
colony might declare that rule null and void and ended, 
and that if they so declared, it was at an end. This 
principle declares that a nation cannot extend its 
authority over a people that declines its authority. 
We may now find it convenient to repudiate these 
doctrines—we are repudiating them—but we cannot 
do it without in the same act overthrowing the foun¬ 
dations of our own national life, of our history, and of 
our freedom. 

We may be perfectly confident that whatever we now 


OUR DEBT TO THE FIEIPINOS. 


45 


do to these helpless Islands is making new precedent 
for ourselves, and that if we pull down the bulwarks ot 
justice and freedom by which we have thus far pro¬ 
tected our own liberties, those liberties at home will 
next fall, and domestic tyranny will take the place of 
the independence established by the blood and courage 
and magnanimity of our forefathers. The time has 
come to choose, and we must do so with clear knowl¬ 
edge that the fate of all we have loved most in America 
is in our choice. As we choose for the Filipinos we 
choose for ourselves. If we disregard their rights and 
liberties such is the stern retribution of nature’s laws 
that it is upon our own necks we shall be placing the 
servile yoke. 

5. Our Great Debt to the Filipinos. 

✓ 

There is no doubt of the direction we have taken 
thus far. Our course toward the Filipinos has been 
one of the utmost perfidy. We had faithfully 
announced to the whole world that we harbored no 
designs of conquest or aggrandizement in going to war 
with Spain. The Filipinos took us at our word and 
welcomed us as deliverers. By our own declaration— 
addressed nominally to Cuba but universal in its terms 
and promises—we were pledged to the Filipinos not to 
violently subj ugate them to ourselves. It was on this 
pledge that they received us. If they had believed our 
promise to be a lie, as it turned out to be, what would 
their course have been ! It is most certain that they 
would not have co-operated with us. They had no 
knowledge whatever of us—most of them had never 
heard that we exist—and they could have had no reason 
to think that our tyranny would be preferable to 
Spain’s. They were seeking freedom, freedom from all 
alien rule. When they learned anything about us they 
must have learned that we were a stronger nation than 
Spain and they might have very rationally decided to 
help the Spaniards against us, on the ground that it 
would be easier for them to drive the Spaniards out 
later than to drive a more powerful people out if it 
gained a footing. If they had done this our ‘brilliant’ 


46 OUR DEBT TO THE FILIPINOS. 

career in the Far Hast would have been sadly tarnished. 
Could we have crushed Spain there if the Islanders had 
opposed us? It would have taken much of our time 
and blood and money, and the end is doubtful. For if 
the prospects had been brighter in the Philippines, 
Spain would have held out a little longer in Cuba, and 
in a few more days our Cuban army would have been 
helpless from disease and must have suffered a terrible 
punishment. Spain would have annihilated our land 
forces. To say that the Filipinos saved us from this 
humiliation is not a wild statement. Since they are 
fighting against us now for freedom there is no reason 
to suppose that if they had known our real designs they 
would have fought for us then to help us make them 
our subjects. 

If they had not joined the Spaniards to keep us out, 
there were two other courses open: either to fight 
both the Spaniards and us, or to help us to defeat the 
Spanish and then to turn upon us. The result in either 
case would have been disastrous to our arms and pres¬ 
tige. The whole world would have looked upon our 
Spanish war differently if we had been driven to fight 
the natives before the war closed. The one justification 
of the war having been knocked from under, the 
restraints upon continental sympathy and interference 
would have fallen off and Spain would undoubtedly 
have found active supporters. There was Germany 
aching for a plausible excuse to order us out of that 
region. This would have been a stunningly plausible 
excuse—that on the pretense of liberating the Filipinos 
from Spain we were killing them (which we have since 
done). It would have been universally believed that 
since we were lying with regard to the Philippines, we 
were also lying with regard to Cuba. What support 
could we have then found anywhere ? England was 
able to give us moral support on the ground that we 
were waging an unselfish fight for humanity, but if 
this ground had been withdrawn, that support must 
not only have been much weaker but Continental Pow¬ 
ers would have combined to disregard it and save Spain 
from humiliation. What then ? We must have backed 


SUPERLATIVE TREACHERY. 


47 


down or been the cause of a world war. England 
might or might not have helped then. If she had done 
so the war must have been infinitely more terrible and 
to no purpose but to gratify our desire to steal, and to 
establish the right of the Anglo-Saxon race to steal 
everywhere. If she had declined to back our hypocrisy 
with warships we should have received an exceeding 
great thrashing and would have exceedingly more than 
deserved it. 

To return to our destinies in the Philippines. With 
the Filipinos hostile, or ready to attack us after the 
routing of the Spanish, our conquest of the islands 
would not have been the easy task that it was. The 
Filipino leaders have not shown themselves lacking in 
intelligence. Had they taken an attitude of enmity to 
both combatants, the land battle at Manila would prob¬ 
ably have been a draw, and both sides been consider¬ 
ably weakened. Assuming, as we have seen that we 
justly may, that the hostility of the natives to us would 
have deferred (perhaps indefinitely) the surrender of 
Santiago, the war would have continued in the Philip¬ 
pines. We should have been forced to send thousands 
more troops to carry on a recognized and admitted war 
of conquest, in defiance of the moral judgment of man¬ 
kind, and under difficulties rendered distressing by the 
native opposition. Would the war have been ended 
yet had this transpired ? It is unlikely. 

Moreover, if the real intentions of our political 
masters had been known earlier the support of the 
great majority of the American people would have been 
withdrawn from the war. Americans would not at that 
time have endured the thought of subduing the native 
Filipinos to our benevolent sway by force. This would 
have so embarrassed the Administration and Congress 
as to oblige them to abandon the conquest of the Phil¬ 
ippines or to declare as a finality that they should be 
free and independent after the eviction of Spain. 

6. Superlative Treachery. 

What is the whole truth ? That we owe the great¬ 
est gratitude to these heroic Islanders, that we have 


4 8 


SUPERLATIVE TREACHERY. 


shamelessly denied that debt. Their faith in us and 
aid contributed much to the success and speedy close 
of the war—we gained that faith and aid by deception. 
No sooner was the war done and their usefulness to us 
over than we came out in our true colors and announced 
our sovereignty, an act that, committed earlier, would 
have prevented alliance and made them our deadly 
foes. We have shown by this deed that honor does 
not exist in us. It is one of those pieces of inconceiv¬ 
able infamy which have sullied the records of mon¬ 
archies and which we abominated for a hundred proud 
years. We can only wipe this stain out by restoring 
the usurped sovereignty of these territories to the peo¬ 
ple who dwell in them. 

Follow in further detail the course of American 
hypocrisy toward this unhappy people. Our Imperial 
and monarchical press may find that it serves the cause 
of prejudice to defame Aguinaldo, but their tirades 
lose force when we recall the opinions of the British 
press of our own “Mr.” Washington a century and a 
quarter ago. Moreover, considering the lie that we 
have perpetrated upon the Filipinos, and sustained 
^ with our Imperialist press, there is better ground to 
believe him than his traducers. And here are declar¬ 
ations by him after general Otis had transmitted 
McKinley’s proclamation of sovereignty to the Archi¬ 
pelago: 

“General Otis calls himself in the proclamation referred to 
‘military governor of the Philippine Islands,’ and I protest once 
and a thousand times, and with all the energy of my soul, 
against such authority. I solemnly proclaim that I have never 
had, neither in Singapore or in Hongkong, nor here in the 
Philippines, any understanding or agreement, neither by word 
nor by writing, to recognize the sovereignty of America in this, 
my loved country. On the contrary, I say that I returned to 
these islands on board an American warship on the 19th of May 
of last year with the decided and manifest proposition to carry 
on the war with the Spaniards, to reconquer our liberty and our 
independence. . . . 

“I solemnly protest in the name of God, the root and fount¬ 
ain of all justice and of all right, and who has given me the 
power to direct my dear brothers in the difficult work of our 
regeneration, against this intrusion of the Government of the 
United States in the sovereignty of these islands. Equally I 



SUPERLATIVE TREACHERY. 


49 


protest in the name of all the Filipino people against this 
intrusion because when they gave me their vote of confidence, 
electing me, though unworthy, as president of the nation, when 
they did this they imposed on me the duty to sustain to the 
death their liberty and independence. 

“Lastly, I protest against this act, so little expected, of the 
sovereignty of America in these islands, in the name of all that 
has passed, of which I have proofs in my possession, referring 
to my relations with the American authorities, which prove in 
the most unequivocal manner that the United States did not 
bring me from Hongkong to make war against the Spaniards 
to benefit the Americans, but to help us to gain our liberty and 
independence, for the attainment of which object the American 
authorities promised me verbally their decided and efficacious 
co-operation.” 

Fraud is here openly charged by the responsible 
leader of the Philippine people upon the American 
authorities, and why shall we not believe him ? The 
American authorities were then sailing briskly before 
the full gust of Philanthropy. Everything they did 
was from humanity to the dowm-trodden—they said. 
Our deep and mighty ruler had not yet taken the peo¬ 
ple into confidence regarding his plans of forcible occu¬ 
pation or affectionate annihilation, so that nothing 
restrained him from playing a confidence game on the 
believing Aguinaldo to gain his support. True, if the 
president and his friends did this they were unconsion- 
able liars, and the nation ought to hasten to set itself right 
by denouncing the lie and keeping the promise made or 
implied. But they are likewise unconsionable liars if 
they made the promise at the time in good faith and 
have since concluded “for reasons of State” to break 
it. Among great Powers this kind of change of mind 
or lying would be sufficient cause for a destructive war, 
and our criminal responsibility for the change is not 
diminished by the fact that the Philippines are not a 
great Power. As no cause is apparent why at that 
time the pledges should not have been made, we must 
believe that they were made; the more so as the natives 
have since proved themselves willing to lay down their 
lives for that promised independence. This is the 
strongest proof that they would not have aided us with¬ 
out satisfying assurances that the prize was to be their 
own freedom. 


50 


SUPERLATIVE TREACHERY. 


The Filipino junta at Hongkong has made the fol¬ 
lowing incriminating statement: 

“Information which has leaked through the Pinkertons sent 
here by President McKinley to investigate the shipments of 
arms to the Filipinos shows that the first shipment of arms to 
Aguinaldo was made by order of the American Government 
through Consul Wildman, hence the shipment per the Wing 
Foi. The American Government subsequently telegraphed to 
cease this, coincident with the change of policy to annexation. 
Mr. Wildman and Rear Admiral Dewey promised to pay, but 
have not yet paid, for a subsequent expedition by the Abbey, 
authorized by Admiral Dewey, who afterward seized the steamer, 
and she is still held. Papers respecting this are now in posses¬ 
sion of the Secretary of the Navy. The protestations of Admiral 
Dewey and other Americans that they have made no promises 
are ridiculous. In view of these facts, let the American people 
iudge how the nation’s word of honor was pledged to the Fil¬ 
ipinos and confided in by them and violated by the recent 
treachery of General Otis.” 

Consider this fairly. Our policy did change at a 
certain time. At some point McKinley made up his 
mind to aim at the retention of the Islands. Before 
that there was no reason why we should not treat the 
Filipinos with confidence and supply them with arms 
to assist us. We probably did so. But after the 
change of heart there was every reason why we should 
not give them arms which they were likely to use later 
against us. 

We can get our minds to comprehend the stultifica¬ 
tion of our Government by putting Ireland in the place 
of the Asiatic archipelago. Fancy us engaged in a war 
for humanity’s sake to rescue the Soudan from further 
bloody British assizes. We have issued the sacred 
manifesto to the world “that the United States hereby 
disclaims any disposition or intention to exercise sov¬ 
ereignty, jurisdiction or control,’’ and our revered Chief 
Magistrate has solemnly declared that forcible annex¬ 
ation is not to be thought of because it would be crim¬ 
inal aggression. Relying on these ought-to-be inviol¬ 
able pledges, Ireland has risen to arms to strike for her 
own freedom, and has welcomed our forces to her soil 
to expel the English. We succeed, but instead ot 
keeping faith with Ireland we demand the cession of 
her from England for a small price. We announce that 


OUR UE OE EOVE. 


51 


our promises of freedom applied only to the Soudan, 
and our president issues a proclamation of American 
military sovereignty over Ireland. We can easily 
imagine what would happen. The Irish in Ireland and 
the Irish-Americans would stir up such an uproar 
against the astounding swindle, that we should be glad 
to get out of Ireland on any terms, if need be paying a 
price for our aggression and lie. And the whole of 
Europe would justly and if need be forcibly sustain 
Ireland’s demands. Remote barbarians are in a differ¬ 
ent posture, and we can boldly bully them with 
impunity. They have no powerful friends and we have 
nothing to fear. But the deed is as rascally and abom¬ 
inable as if we were to deal Ireland a similar treachery 
in like circumstances. 

7. The American Lie of Love. 

To those who believe that American honor is still 
worth preserving, the language of the main author (or 
nerveless tool, perhaps) of this perfidy, William McKin¬ 
ley, is animating reading. He dilated upon the benev¬ 
olence of the United States in his proclamation of sov¬ 
ereignty or war, informing the natives how good it 
would be for some of them to be killed if they could 
not realize the blessing of becoming our property. 
Tenderly eloquent words are the following, illumined 
by the benevolent murder of thousands, which followed 
them: 

“Finally, it should be the earnest and paramount aim of the 
military administration to win the confidence, respect, and af¬ 
fection of the inhabitants of the Philippines, by assuring to them 
in every possible way that full measure of individual rights and 
liberties which is the heritage of free peoples, and by proving 
to them that the mission of the United States is one of benevo¬ 
lent assimilation, substituting the mild sway of justice and 
right for arbitrary rule. 

“In the fulfillment of this high mission, supporting the tem¬ 
perate administration of affairs for the greatest good of the gov¬ 
erned, there must be sedulously maintained the strong arm of 
authority, to repress disturbance, and to overcome all obstacles 
to the bestowal of the blessings of good and stable government 
upon the people of the Philippine Islands under the free flag of 
the United States.” 


52 


OUR UR OF LOVE. 


The terms in which general Otis transmitted the 
president’s ultimatum will also raise the pride of free¬ 
dom-preaching Americans. He says: 

“In the war against Spain the United States forces came here 
to destroy the power of that nation and to give the blessings of 
peace and individual freedom to the Philippine people; that we 
are here as friends of the Filipinos to protect them in their 
homes, their employments, their individual and religious lib¬ 
erty; that all persons who, either by active aid or honest 
endeavor, co-operate with the Government of the United States 
to give effect to the beneficent purposes, will receive the reward 
of its support and protection. . . . 

“I am fully of the opinion that it is the intention of the 
United States Government, while directing affairs generally, to 
appoint the representative men now forming the controlling 
element of the Filipinos, to civil positions of trust and respon¬ 
sibility, and it will be my aim to appoint thereto such Filipinos 
as may be acceptable to the supreme authorities at Washington. 

“It is also my belief that it is the intention of the United 
States Government to draw from the Filipino people so much 
of the military force of the islands as is possible, and consistent 
with a free and well constituted government of the country and 
it is my purpose to inaugurate a policy of that character.” 

The ‘representative men of the Filipinos’ were to be 
bribed into acceptance of American authority by the 
promise of tempting offices under the United States. 
Poor, mean payment this to a people for resigning its 
independence, and a contemptible method of gaining 
possession of that independence. Another application 
of the noble ‘spoils of office’ system which our rulers 
have for deluding and tyrannizing over their own coun¬ 
trymen. And how conciliatory and inviting that 
assurance of our Otis that the Philippine people would 
some of them be graciously permitted to serve in the 
ranks of the military to keep their country in subjection 
to the United States! This must have been a flash of 
Otis’s own private humor to help his staggering presis 
dent out of a ditch, for what does the mighty Secretary 
of War soon after say on this subject? He speak- 
thus* 

“The natives of Cuba, Porto Rico and the Philippines do not 
understand our purposes and ways of government sufficiently 
to admit of their being made part of our military establishment 


♦Contained in a statement from the War Department on the needed 
army legislation, issued Feb. 19, 1899. 



OUR UE OF LOVE. 


53 


to the extent of organizing them into companies, battalions and 
regiments at once. Our officers of greatest experience with 
them are of this opinion. In time this could doubtless be done, 
but it will require education. By degrees, a company could be 
given to a regiment to be utilized as scouts and guides; further 
on, a battalion could be added, and in time things working 
w T ell, regiments could be organized, but it will take time, so 
much time, that for the uses of the immediate present and 
some time in the future, they could not be wisely counted as 
affording any considerable strength to the service, however 
many might be provided for by a Congressional act. They are 
a possible, even probable factor, of the future, but not for the 
present.” 

What is to be done to reconcile this with general 
Otis’s volatile assurances? Here there is no chance 
for mistake or double interpretation. The American 
government promises something it has no intention of 
performing for a very long time, if ever, in order to get 
firm military grasp on the Filipinos. The deception 
stands in black and white. Otis says, ‘It is my pur¬ 
pose to inaugurate a policy drawing from the Filipino 
people so much of the military force of the islands as 
is possible.’ The War Department at Washington 
says, ‘For use as native soldiers the Filipinos are a 
possible , even a probable factor , of the future , but not for 
the present .’ We defy the European Powers to produce 
a more barefaced instance of fraud in their own deal¬ 
ings with savages than this masterpiece. 

It is not unfair to take the president as the leader of 
the Imperialist phrenzy, and in his utterances to esti¬ 
mate the sense and unselfishness of all. We find him 
in his Boston banquet speech repeating the bathos 
which is the stock in trade of the British expansionists. 
His language is their language, and we hear him bab¬ 
bling the phrases of Chamberlain, Salisbury, Rose¬ 
bery, Curzon and the rest. He speaks of our flag in 
the Philippines, “where it now floats, the symbol and 
assurance of liberty and justice.” It floats over the 
graves of many dead Filipinos who died from accept¬ 
ing our assurances of liberty and justice. 

The immortal lie that we have not sought to confis¬ 
cate the Philippine archipelago is reiterated—“It was 
a trust we have not sought;” God thrust it upon us, 


54 


OUR LIS OS LOVE. 


he says. God was the cause of our treachery to the 
trusting natives, God compelled us to shoot them down 
when our dastardly intentions were discovered, God 
forces us against our virtuous wish to plant ourselves 
in the Orient in order to bring our mailed fist within 
arm’s length of China to smash holes in her if 
necessary for our sacred trade. McKinley says: “Our 
concern was not for territory or trade or empire, but 
for people, whose interests and destiny, without our 
willing, had been put in our hands.” “No imperial 
designs lurk in the American mind. They are alien 
to American sentiments, thought and purpose. Our 
priceless principles undergo no change under a tropical 
sun. . . . They go with the fiat: ‘Why read ye not 
the changeless truth, the free can conquer but to save. ’ ” 
It is not pleasant, but the question must be asked: 
Does this man think that he is talking to a nation of 
fools? If his words are not mere re-election vapor, he 
is the only man in the United States who is ignorant 
that what is thrusting us into the Orient is not God 
but Greed—greed for trade. Unless his mind has 
been unsettled by greatness the pious McKinley knows 
as every other American knows that if our priceless 
principles had not undergone a change since we 
started on our errand of mercy to Cuba, to stop the 
Spaniards from shooting Cubans, we should not be 
shooting Filipinos now because they wanted the same 
mercy at our hands that we promised to Cuba. If we 
must be villians let us not sneak and deny it and pub¬ 
lish a guinea pig prospectus that we have taken God 
into partnership. There is only one defense for 
McKinley, if he is not a deceiver: he is dying of 
majesty. This was the fate of president Faure. A 
French statesman and physician, noting the signs of 
premature decay, said: “If M. Faure is not soon 
turned out of the Presidency he will die from general 
paralysis, the effect of ‘folie de grandeur.’ ” M. 
Faure was so great that no one could speak to him 
first. For charity’s sake let us believe that McKinley 
is so great that he can see nothing as it is but only as 
his magnificence of mind shapes it. 


FOOLING ALL THE PEOPLE. 


55 


More reading of his speech will not change our 
opinion: 

“We could not discharge the responsibilities upon us until 
these islands became ours either by conquest or treaty. There 
was but one alternative, and that was either Spain or the 
United States in the Philippines. The other suggestion showed, 
first, that they should be tossed into the arena for the strife of 
nations; or, second, be lost to the anarchy and chaos of no pro¬ 
tectorate at all, and were too shameful to be considered.” 

This is in defence of our policy of making ourselves 
masters of the Philippines and of exterminating the 
portion of their inhabitants who will not consent. But 
the truth is quite different. 

8. Fooling All the People. 

It is one of the recent novelties of free government 
to be obliged to defend the right of the governed to be 
consulted. Mr. McKinley has enunciated and acted 
upon the doctrine that we may govern a people against 
their will according to our own ideas of their good. 
The application of this tyrannical principle was the 
cause of our disgraceful war to prevent the independence 
of the Filipinos. The McKinley statement of this 
doctrine is the most remarkable and revolting expres¬ 
sion of political bombast of the century, assuming that 
its author is not insane. It is this: 

“Did we need their consent to perform a great act for human¬ 
ity ? We had it in every aspiration of their minds, in every 
hope of their hearts. Was it necessary to ask their consent to 
capture Manila, the capital of their islands ? Did we ask their 
consent to liberate them from Spanish sovereignty or to enter 
Manila Bay and destroy the Spanish sea power there? We did 
not ask these; we were obeying a higher moral obligation, 
which rested on us, and which did not require anybody’s con¬ 
sent. We were doing our duty by them, as God gave us the 
light to see our duty, with the consent of our own consciences, 
and with the approval of civilization. Every present obligation 
has been met and fulfilled in the expulsion of Spanish sov¬ 
ereignty from their islands, and while the war that destroyed it 
was in progress we could not ask their views. Nor can we now 
ask their consent.” 

Pardon must be asked for comment on fallacies so 
bare as these. Our forcing Spain to take herself out 
of the Philippines was the “great act of humanity” 
alluded to. To have this done was the mighty ‘aspi- 


56 FOOLING ALL THE PEOPLE. 

ration and hope of their hearts,’ and it was this aspi¬ 
ration and hope that gave consent to what we did, the 
capture of Manila, et cetera. McKinley justifies our 
course by the fact that we had this tacit consent. But 
then, by his own words, that consent extended no far¬ 
ther than the expulsion of Spain. That consent 
explicitly contradicted and forbade our taking Spain’s 
place as sovereign. Even the consent to force Spain 
out did not exist if our entrance into her shoes was to 
be coupled with it. This is so undeniable that for 
McKinley to invoke God’s sanction on our ‘great act’ 
after we have gone forward and stultified that act by 
taking the very place that Spain held, is raving blas¬ 
phemy. ‘ ‘We were obeying a higher moral obligation” 
—was there anything higher or moral in our ousting 
Spain to seize her post of sovereignty ? Neither our 
consiences nor civilization ever approved this. 

Mr. McKinley knows well enough the logical thim¬ 
ble-rigging in which he is engaged, always supposing 
that his mind has not failed. He seeks to make a fact 
which justifies one course justify a course that is the 
antithesis and overthrow of the first. The Filipinos 
wanted freedom: that justified us in driving their 
master out; they wanted freedom; that justified us in 
becoming their master ourselves. Listen reverently to 
the mind which can evolve such marvels. It says: 
‘Every present obligation has been met and fulfilled 
in the expulsion of Spanish sovereignty from the 
islands.’ This was true provided we ourselves had 
then claimed no sovereignty there, otherwise it was 
absolutely false. In fact McKinley had already, before 
making this extravagant speech, declared his sov¬ 
ereignty and a war had issued from it. We had broken 
our obligation to the islands by replacing one sov¬ 
ereignty with another, and by not withdrawing or 
expelling our own sovereignty. 

The most wonderful logical break ot this demented 
man remains to be told. ‘While the war that destroyed 
Spanish sovereignty was in progress we could not ask 
the Filipinos’ views,’ he says. Very well, grant this. 
‘‘Nor can we ask it now,” he goes on. 



FOOTING ALt MB BBOPBB. 


57 


“Indeed, can any one tell me in what form it could be mar¬ 
shaled and ascertained until after peace and order, so necessary 
to the reign of reason, shall be secured and established ? A 
reign of terror is not the kind of rule under which right action 
and deliberate judgment are possible. It is not a good time for 
the liberator to submit important questions concerning liberty 
and government to the liberated while they are engaged in 
shooting down their rescuers.” 

By this, McKinley the Magnificent informs us that 
immediately after the Spanish war ceased the Filipino 
war began, that there was no time or space between 
them for asking the views of the Filipinos on what they 
would like to have us do. O McKinley, do you think 
that we are all besotted with grandeur like yourself? 
Do you think that we have forgotten that there was a 
long period between those wars during which you might 
have ‘marshaled and ascertained’ the views of the 
islanders, and that you elected to cut the knot and set¬ 
tle the whole matter according to your own views, by 
proclaiming yourself their sovereign ? After your car¬ 
nival of murder is ended how else will you learn their 
views than by doing as you might and should have 
done prior to your proclamation ? You did not wish 
to give them a chance to express their preferences, lest 
they might oppose your ambitions for empire, and that 
is the secret of your not inquiring. That is the secret 
of your insolent manifesto calling on them to obey you. 
And now, like a coward, you would run away to evade 
even the memory of this interval and what happened 
in it, pretending that the ‘misguided Filipinos,’ as you 
arrogantly call them, began to ‘shoot their rescuers 
down’ as soon as Spain surrendered, and gave you no 
time to discover their will. But no one will be deceived, 
for all know that after your mind, under the dictation 
of corporation kings, was resolved to hold the Philip¬ 
pines as yours, there was no intention on your part of 
consulting them in good faith. Some farce of consul¬ 
tation may have gone through your mind for a later 
day—with their representative citizens, the whites and 
big property owners, in order to have them perform the 
mock-ceremony of voting authority for acts already 
done. 


HONORABLE SOttmON. 




And you Mr. McKinley, who out of a state of confidence 
and repose had brought a reign of terror and destruction 
in those islands, equalling and surpassing the terror and 
destruction under Spain, could say to the American 
people, “It is not a good time for the liberator to sub¬ 
mit important questions concerning liberty and govern¬ 
ment to the liberated while they are engaged in shoot¬ 
ing down their rescuers.”! Who was shooting the res¬ 
cued down? What did the ‘liberators’ deserve for 
turning into masters and coercers but to be shot down ? 
You, McKinley, having by voluntary unlawful act 
made the blood of two races flow, arouse unbounded 
compassion for your suffering when in stately melan¬ 
choly you close your comfortable Boston feast by allus¬ 
ion to the blood-stained trenches around Manila, where 
‘every red drop, whether from the veins of an American 
soldier or a misguided Filipino, is anguish to my heart.’ 

The effusive sophistries of the national executive, 
whether the result of aberation or dishonesty, have a 
public effect. They impose on many, for raw and 
brutal though they are, the people have allowed this 
executive to continue his course. It can only follow 
that the people are themselves either dull or devoid of 
conscience. Is a people that follows such lead, accepts 
as guileless truth a shower of feathery fairy tales, takes 
a man seriously who says twice two are five, because 
he has political authority, is such a people any better 
in mind or character than its deceiver ? The American 
people have changed since the ring of Expansion was 
put in their nose. The presence of this ring is public 
advertisement that the Anglo-Saxon race has already 
lost independence. To a people of independence and 
nerve a president could not have poured out a speech 
of bilge-water. The most hopeless sign for America is 
that that speech was not repudiated instantly by the 
whole continent. 

9. The Honorable Solution of the Problem. 

What ought we to have done, and what ought we to 
do ? We ought to have signified unequivocally to the 


HONORABLE SOLUTION. 


59 


Filipinos that we had no intention of becoming their 
sovereign in any form. As soon as Spain surrendered 
we should have made this irrevocable disclaimer. It 
cannot be said that this would have been impossible or 
impolitic, for the American Peace Commissioners had 
instructions from the Administration to require the 
cession of the island of Luzon. “The instructions of 
the President when we started out were to take 
Luzon,” admitted Mr. Frye, one of the peace commis¬ 
sioners, when cross-examined in the Senate by Mr. 
Vest. This developed into a demand for the whole 
Philippine group. Then was the time to have pledged 
ourselves to make the entire archipelago free. Con¬ 
gress ought to have taken this stand and compelled the 
shilly-shallying president to make it. Congress ought 
to have pledged itself and the country before the 
departure of the peace commission that all territory 
obtained from Spain by cession should be made free and 
independent. 

It was also politic. We have labored from the first 
under the suspicion that the disinterestedness of our 
demands from Spain did not ring true. We could have 
removed the suspicion by Congressional declaration 
that we should hold none of the territory as ours, and 
much friction would have been saved. We were pre¬ 
vented from this honorable course by the conspiracy of 
the president to keep everything he could get, and by 
the pitiful servility of Congress to the president’s orders. 

^ The president listened to corporate commands, trans¬ 
mitted them to congress, and congress obeyed. 

If congress had pledged that all acquired territory 
should be free, our dastardly war to enslave the Phil¬ 
ippines would have been averted. McKinley, being 
properly muzzled by congressional act, could not have 
issued his aggrandizing proclamation of peaceable sov¬ 
ereignty or forcible conquest. Our course would have 
been plain from the beginning: we should have aided 
the Cubans, Porto Ricans, and Filipinos to set up inde¬ 
pendent governments of their own and should have 
been spared the fatal complications which the aggres¬ 
sion of the president has loaded upon us. The ques- 


6o 


HONORABLE SOLUTION. 


tions of Imperialism, Expansion and Militarism would 
not have been raised at all. 

What should our relation to the independent nations 
have been after we had established them ? If we could 
have trusted ourselves not to be seized with the grab¬ 
bing epilepsy, a simple guardianship to extend no far¬ 
ther than keeping other Powers off and assisting the 
native governments to police themselves as they learned 
self-governing forms, would have answered. This was 
one course. It was ruled out because we very 
early showed that we could not trust ourselves in the 
presence of property without itching to steal it, and 
that whatever we assumed to protect in the mask of 
philanthropy would soon be transformed into our pri¬ 
vate property by circumvention or force. 

But another, far wiser, course was open—one which 
preserved us from the evils of Imperialism and secured 
to those concerned a higher good than our single guar¬ 
dianship. We should have formed, and should now 
form, with Great Britian, Switzerland and perhaps 
Germany, a Joint Protectorate over the Philippines, 
upon a plan binding all to the two simple principles of 
protecting the islands from predatory powers, and 
assisting the free government constituted by the inhab¬ 
itants to preserve internal order. 

I name Switzerland because she represents advanced 
ideas of freedom, justice and democracy. Having no 
temptation to avaricious aggrandizement she would 
bring into the counsels of the protectorate elevated 
principles and impartial judgments. 

There are decisive advantages in this method. A 
single nation might veer over to selfishness—it nearly 
always does—but several nations will act as checks on 
one another and adhere to the purpose of advancing 
the interests of their charge. 

No private motives could be suspected and the joint 
protectorate would enjoy the full confidence of the 
natives; its suggestions would be honored and the 
progress of the people be as rapid as it is in them to 
make. 

If there is any foundation for the belief of some that 


HONORABLE SOLUTION. 


6l 


a reign of anarchy would follow if the natives were 
left alone, the misfortune would be prevented by the 
combined powers. If the Filipinos knew that internal 
wars would not be allowed they would have little 
inclination to attempt them and would learn to govern 
themselves without the sword. The single nation 
makes the internal disturbances of a dependency the 
signal for taking more authority to itself, where a real 
protector would stand in the firm and friendly relation 
of arbitrator, striving to make the combatants feel the 
consequences of their folly, without robbing the nation 
of liberty. 

The system would be an experiment before the world 
in the best methods of advancing backward races. All 
the trials made by single nations are of small import¬ 
ance because the commercial interests of the governing 
people shoulder every other aim out. But the results 
obtained by an honest experiment would be so con¬ 
vincing that their adoption in all colonies would follow. 

The United States would be saved from Imperialism. 
No increase either of army or navy would be required, 
the forces of the combined powers being equal to any 
emergency. But the existence of the combination 
would prevent an emergency from arising. 

We should indicate to the world our continued and 
strengthened adherence to the principles of peace, our 
disgust at the orgies of selfishness of European Powers 
in their colonial affairs, which threaten to set the whole 
world in a blaze of war. 

We should clear our skirts of deception. Duty is 
being made to carry the burden of rascally selfishness, 
and the way out of the dilemma for the nation is a plan 
extricating duty from selfishness. Accepting as true 
that the people mainly want to follow duty and that 
the commercial promoters are, by sharp practice, mak¬ 
ing them think that duty cannot be performed without 
expansion and imperialism, the one necessary thing is 
to drive these tricksters out of their cover and unmask 
them. A policy that meets in full all the philanthropic 
demands that they can urge, and yet without imperial¬ 
ism, one that does all the good that can be done for the 


62 


honorable solution. 


Filipinos and yet without expansion, leaves their 
deceptive selfishness without a veil: and joint protection 
is such a policy. Having this to advocate we know 
that any who oppose it, still demanding annexation or 
sole American guardianship, have a private axe to 
grind. We then have to face the proposition of com¬ 
mercial greed, without religion or morality to hide its 
sins, and the great mass of upright Americans will 
give it the doom it deserves. 

It will cease then to be incumbent upon any one, in 
reality or imagination, to support a measure that con¬ 
tains the seeds of national destruction. From no side 
could suspicion of dishonor or failure to realize the 
highest conception of duty be brought against the 
United States, and the principles and institutions of 
this country would remain firmly anchored to the rock 
of freedom. 

What now remains of the favorite defences of the 
wrong we have been doing? Absolutely nothing. It 
is said by those who have put us into the hole that we had 
no honorable way but to go into the hole, by taking 
the Philippines. They summon as the proof that 
every other course was ‘not to be thought of, ’ and they 
enumerate the following possible courses: To turn the 
islands back to Spain; To give them to some other 
power or powers; or, To leave them to themselves, a 
prey to domestic anarchy and seizure by the predatory 
nations of Europe. Since we had to keep them, they 
say, we had to conquer them, and that made conquer¬ 
ing them honorable. But since there was another hon¬ 
orable course we did not have to keep them, and there¬ 
fore we did not have to conquer them, and the proof 
that it was honorable to conquer them is destroyed. 

But the disingenuousness of our imperialist govern¬ 
ment will not bear scrutiny, even supposing that a joint 
protectorate had been impossible; for a formal pro¬ 
tectorate by us which gave the islands independent 
government and freedom, warning other Powers off and 
lending our aid to keep the internal peace and help the 
internal development of a nation recognized by us as 
free, would have borne no resemblance to the pro- 


HOftORABl^ SOIyUl'ION. 


63 


tectorate of possession which presidential majesty with 
the whipped consent of congress is going on to estab¬ 
lish. This kind of protection is carefully ignored by 
imperialists, as if it were unimaginable. Their studied 
silence exposes the indecency of our position. They 
want a protectorate that contains sovereignty and to 
extenuate the usurpation and shame of it they call it a 
state of quasi sovereignty. 

It is an awkward position to be in, that of slaying 
men to make them love us. What ought a great nation 
to do in such circumstances ? Go on slaying to prove 
that we cannot be made to back down even when we 
are wrong? That is about where our Filipino war 
puts us. The theory of International Force is that 
when a nation has begun a disgraceful row without 
color of cause, it must keep on and whip its unoffend¬ 
ing adversary or lose caste and respect. This is the 
creed of the district bully. What does he know or 
care about justice? Tet us take another case. A 
school master begins to thrash a pupil, and in the midst 
of it discovers that the boy is not guilty. If he is a 
brute and a fool he goes on with the whipping, saying 
that if he should stop before the job was done the boy 
wouldn’t respect or love him. We are performing 
exactly that tomfoolery in the Philippines. Our rulers 
think that they need a thrashing on general principles 
to make them understand that we’re boss. It is all 
false and ridiculous. 

Being in the midst of a bad war which our chiefs 
undertook for conquest and personal ambition, the right 
and honorable way is to bring the business to a sudden 
end by acknowledging that we are wrong, indemnifying 
the Filipinos for the evil we have done them, and giv¬ 
ing them self-government and freedom. And there is 
no other honorable course. We can afford to do it 
because we are strong. To say that it would be cow¬ 
ardly is preposterous. What we are doing is the cow¬ 
ardly thing: to think of such foulness as we are trans¬ 
acting to those poor harmless savages makes a true 
American bitterly ashamed of his country! It is mean¬ 
ness incarnate. We can never hold up our heads as 



6 4 


HONORABLE solution. 


we have done. The vile spot will not wash out, it is 
there indelibly, a red cruel stain of damnable infamy. 
Every day that the war goes on deepens our crime and 
shame. Talk of cowardice! A man who caught an 
innocent boy and skinned him would be no worse than 
we are in this sublimely wanton ruffianism. The peo¬ 
ple ought to rise in retributive indignation and compel 
the puppets at Washington to stop this thing. There 
is no hope unless they do, the craven congress has 
adjourned, and unless the people thunder their rage 
and shame, and surge over the Administration pol¬ 
troonery with an inflexible will that this brutality shall 
cease, it will drag on to lower and lower depths of 
moral damnation. 

Better America ought to be heard now. The poli¬ 
ticians have had their fling, selfishness has steered the 
nation, they have guided us into the crater of a vol¬ 
cano. Now let the voice of American citizens speak. 
Now let those who believe that we have a higher des¬ 
tiny than to rob and steal and kill in the name of God 
and Eove, come forward and take the helm out of the 
hands of these wreckers of American traditions, Ameri¬ 
can honor, American justice, and American liberty. 
Down with the leaders that have betrayed! It is the 
great soul of the American people alone that can save 


/ 


Fourteen copies of this pamphlet will be sent to 
any address for one dollar. 


Imperialism and Liberty 

BY 

MORRISON I. SWIFT 

A continuation of the three chapters com¬ 
prising’ this pamphlet. It contains 500 pages 
and is a complete review of the struggle to 
enthrone Imperialism over America, up to the 
present time. It should be read by all who 
believe in rescuing the principles of American 
freedom. Before an honest man can be an 
expansionist the facts and arguments pre¬ 
sented by the book must be answered. 

PRICE, IN CLOTH, $1.50 

THE} RONBROKE PRESS 

LOS ANGELES, CAL. 





































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